Or was it unhinged to begin with?

If you missed all the drama of the last couple of days, you've missed a clumsy, ill-considered attempt by Dan Onorato to bump Joe Hoeffel form the ballot. Mere minutes before time expired to challenge ballot petitions, Onorato's campaign filed to challenge Hoeffel's petitions. But then, the very next day, the challenges were withdrawn.

The Onorato campaign's reason:

A person familiar with the Onorato campaign told PoliticsPA the challenge was withdrawn after Hoeffel failed to try and knock Williams, from Philadelphia, off the ballot. Onorato, from western Pennsylvania, would seem to have a better chance at winning the Democratic nomination against two southeastern candidates, who would split the region’s vote, instead of just one.

I haven't seen a more cynical, calculated, politically motivated strategy since Dick Cheney changed his registration from Texas to Wyoming in 2000 to circumvent a Constitutional requirement that the POTUS and VPOTUS be from different states. Does Joe Hoeffel have good reasons to try to bump Tony "Throw the parents in jail for the sins of their children" Williams off the ballot? Sure. There's a lot of loyalty in the Philly Democratic machine. Heck, he's only there because the state Dem machine, and Bob Brady in particular, is afraid of Joe. I mean, there's power and influence at stake here! And, corporatists of both parties will do whatever they deem necessary to hold on to it to the exclusion of the voters.

But, while Joe took the high road, the Onorato campaign showed themselves as the depraved professional political classists we've come to expect in PA politics and they presumed Joe was the same. Thank goodness they were wrong.