Sen. Barack Obama’s 10-point loss in Pennsylvania turned the universe upside down in a few hours. Suddenly, he was no longer his party’s front-runner. Suddenly, he was facing questions about his candidacy in the general election. Suddenly, and rather remarkably Internet pop-up windows, of all things, shifted from “should Hillary quit” surveys to, “can Hillary stop him?”

The horse race metaphor describing the Democratic nomination is only half the picture. There’s another side to what is happening right now. And it’s more like a tornado than a horse race.

Democrats are competing in states they’d otherwise never visit. They are building organizations. Can you imagine Indiana in the blue column this November? How about Virginia or Colorado or Missouri? The Democratic primary has gone sweeping through these states, and could very well leave a center-left footprint on the landscape.

What thousands of new voters in Pennsylvania reinforce is a new breath of life across the American electorate. It’s a momentum of its own, and it is favoring Democrats.

In previous election cycles, the eventual president carried two of the three big swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida in the Electoral College.

The media, handicapped by a lack of depth in a 24/7 news cycle, presented Pennsylvania superficially as Obama’s inability to win working class white votes. Yet the April 22 primary also showed Obama’s improvement coming off a much larger loss in Ohio, a state with similar demographics to the Keystone State.

Suddenly, Republicans see chinks in Obama’s armor where once they thought him invincible. Republicans continue to assail his proximity to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his unguarded comments about bitter small town voters. They’ll attack him because of an alleged endorsement from Hamas.

Obama’s personality and the politics of association are the only tacks Republicans can make. They can’t mention policy or ideology. Democrats are more aligned with mainstream views on Iraq and the economy. Republicans can’t attack the party platform with any substance as the Bush administration has destroyed party credibility. Bush’s Congressional allies are either out of a job (Bill Frist, George Allen, Dennis Hastert) or have personified hypocrisy (David Vitter, Larry Craig and Mark Foley). Bottom line: The party is a one trick pony.

Anti-Obama personal attacks have been successful as a wedge in the Democratic nomination, but it’s wrong to assume that the trend will continue in a general election between Obama and McCain. As long as there’s a Clinton alternative in party primaries, white working class voters will stand behind a fighter who will protect them.

The way the popular vote is going to break down—and there are many ways to slice it with Florida and/or without caucus states—Clinton needs to win as many as 55 percent of the remaining popular vote.

Limiting general election analysis to racial and class controversies prevalent in the Democratic primary obfuscates the emerging horizons of the Electoral Collage. The emphasis of Obama’s losses in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida diminishes his wins in Colorado, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Have we forgotten what we learned in February? Obama is remaking the political map. While Obama may not carry industrial working class states against an alternative like Clinton, it doesn’t mean he won’t carry this group in a general election against McCain.

But the Democratic race is over. Clinton’s win in Pennsylvania has really left us where we were before. She netted 10 delegates. She’s losing in North Carolina, and the third highest-ranking member of the House of Representatives cautioned against the Clintonian tendency of scorched-earth campaigning.

Clinton has campaigned against Obama since February. She’s been controversial in the process. But she’s been successful enough politically to make Obama an untenable candidate for Clinton supporters, but her margin of victory in Pennsylvania doesn’t justify such a campaign.

Should the party mend fences, Obama supporters will likely thank Clinton for conditioning Obama’s imperfect candidacy.

Before the Pennsylvania primary, the dominant news was, as evidenced by ABC’s record setting presidential debate, Obama’s small town comments, the Rev. Wright, the Weather Underground, and commander-in-chiefness.

We’re likely to see the same rehearsal of attacks by Republicans. The nation will have collectively been there, and done that. By the time Republicans begin attacking, the concept of negative advertising will be futile.

Come general election time, when the 46-year-old Obama takes the stage with the 71-year-old McCain – Republican smear attacks will be remembered as the last breath of a dying species.

One week after Obama’s loss in Pennsylvania, Internet ads had reversed and were polling, “Should Hillary quit?”

And the universe was righted.

Max Zimbert is a political columnist for Pop + Politics and a graduate student of journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication