I've been mulling over a question about Obama's small town America gaffe I haven't seen anyone ask yet: If Barack Obama was the Democratic nominee for president and made the same remarks at a closed door San Francisco fundraiser, would partisan instincts have prevented those comments from finding their way into the press?

If the answer is "yes", then doesn't that provide a concrete example of how the drawn out battle between Obama and Clinton has indeed been damaging to the Democratic party and its chances of winning this fall?

On the other hand, Mayhill Fowler, the woman who broke the story on HuffPo, was an Obama supporter to begin with, and she knew that publishing the comments would damage her preferred candidate and provide ammo to both Clinton and McCain. So maybe she would have still wanted to publish them, and maybe Arianna and her editors would have still greenlighted the story. I'm not totally sure, but I'd love to ask them the question and see what they say.