Preview to Super Tuesday

They're saying that Super Tuesday might decide the Republican side of the electoral equation, but no one is expecting the primaries held on Tuesday to tell us who the Democratic nominee is going to be. That's going to take a little bit longer.

I'm thinking something very different. I'm wondering what happens if we don't know who the nominee is by the end of the primaries -- which is entirely possible.

Here's a scenario that I think could happen: Super Tuesday arrives, and Clinton wins a few states. Obama wins a few states as well. But in the final analysis it really doesn't matter who wins which primaries, because when he wins a state, she picks up delegates and when she wins a state, he picks up delegates. So it's entirely possible that they'll both come out of Super Tuesday within shouting distance of each other in the delegate count, with neither of them having enough delegates to win a majority on the first ballot at the convention.

In fact, the further this goes, the more I think we should be keeping an eye on what are known as the super delegates -- those 842 delegates to the convention who are not chosen by primary voters, nearly 40% of the total. I think it's likely (just how likely is anybody's guess) that if either Clinton or Obama wins on the first ballot, it'll be the super delegates who put them over the top.

In April of last year, Tom Curry of MSNBC.com considered such a possibility:

In next year's contest, could a candidate amass a stockpile of super-delegates, survive disappointing showings in early primaries, and go on to win the nomination? That seems unlikely.

“Do the super-delegates have the capacity to resist the choice of the overwhelming majority of primary voters and caucus participants? The answer, I think, is a clear ‘No,’” said [Northeastern University political scientist William] Mayer.

Nevertheless, there’s a romantic streak in some political junkies who fantasize about a scenario in which the nomination could still be in doubt at the end of the primary season.

That hasn't happened in either party in 30 years.

In that scenario, perhaps party heavyweights would line up votes at the convention to swing the nomination to one of the contenders, or to a dark horse.

Such a scenario is looking more and more likely everyday -- and could look very likely on Wednesday.

Tom Moran