“I think it will cost a couple of points at the margin,” Rendell said of the primary race here, “but it’s not a sea change.”

And Rendell said it would mean even less in the general election if Obama is the nominee. “By the time November rolls around, I think this comment will be long forgotten,” he said.

Rendell has long been a politician who’s willing to speak his mind. Earlier in the campaign he raised eyebrows by saying, in contravention of Clinton’s argument against Obama's electability, that the Illinois senator would carry Pennsylvania against the Republicans, too. But his downplaying of the Obama controversy today would seem to undermine Clinton in a big way, given that her campaign has spent the last four days trying to blow it up as big as possible.