A Democratic cliffhanger?
THIS COULD BE the first year since 1960 that the Democratic nomination contest goes all the way to the convention. In that year, John Kennedy eked out a first ballot win, but the roll call of the states went all the way to the letter W -- Wyoming -- before Kennedy went over the top. You have to go back to 1952 for a convention that went more than one ballot (Adlai Stevenson won it on the third).
Most knowledgeable observers think I'm inhaling something. The usual view is that after a few primaries, the race must narrow to the top two contenders because everyone else's money dries up. But consider these unusual factors, which have all converged this year:
Proportional voting. The Democrats no longer use a winner-take-all-system. Thanks to party reforms, votes are allocated proportionally. So, in a nine-person field, a candidate can "win," say, South Carolina with a plurality of 30 percent of the vote -- but only get about 30 percent of that state's delegates. In the old days, the winner would have taken them all.
A persistent field. Several also-rans will doubtless drop out after a few primaries. But the first few primaries could well splinter and give five or six candidates a reason to stay in through March 2 (Super Tuesday), by which time 2,046, or nearly half, the delegates will have been chosen (and splintered).
Flukey front-loading. The Democrats keep trying to front-load the primary process, so that the party unites behind a nominee early and the in-fighting ceases in February rather than July. But this year, front-loading could backfire.
Howard Dean could narrowly win the first two contests, Iowa (45 delegates) on Jan. 19 and New Hampshire (22) on Jan. 27, but not get the necessary momentum to produce an aura of inevitability. These first two events are low-delegate states. The next primary day, Feb. 3, with a a total of 269 delegates at stake, will produce very different headlines.
South Carolina's 45 delegates selected that day will likely be shared by Wesley Clark, Al Sharpton, and John Edwards. In Missouri, with 74 votes, local boy Dick Gephardt will surely come out on top. Oklahoma, with 40 delegates, will be a good state for Clark. New Mexico (26) is Dean territory, but larger Arizona next door (55) could split several ways.
Barring a dramatic change in the dynamics of the race, by Feb. 3 Dean will likely be slowed, but momentum will not shift decisively to Clark (or anyone else). Any of three candidates, Clark, Gephardt, or Dean, could be narrowly leading in the delegate count. Kerry, Edwards, Sharpton, even Kucinich will all have some delegates too.
The longer more than two candidates stay in, the less likely it is that the nominee will emerge early. Kerry has just mortgaged his house. He is picking up some steam in Iowa. Unless Kerry is totally disgraced in New Hampshire, he stays in through March 2, waiting for lightning to strike. Likewise Edwards. Dennis Kucinich, darling of the party's left, has little to lose and plans to keep campaigning.
With proportional representation, this dynamic peels off a few delegates here and a few there. The frontrunner could well come into the convention (stagger in?) with fewer than 40 percent of the delegates. The Democrats also have 715 "super-delegates" who are elected officials and party leaders. But these delegates have no consensus favorite, either.
If I'm right, what does this portend? For the Democrats, it's part bad news, part good news. The bad news is that the circular firing squad goes on another six months. The good news is that the race starts generating real excitement.
With this scenario, the fragmented delegate count produces several possible permutations. After the first convention ballot, delegates can switch their votes. If Dean comes in with, say, 35 percent of the delegates, Clark with 30, and Gephardt with 25, we could get a Dean-Clark ticket or Clark-Dean or Clark-Gephardt, and so on.
Correction: Two weeks ago in this space, I ran a tongue-in-cheek multiple choice test for the New Year. Several readers wrote in that they were surprised that my own choice on Question 1 was answer (a): Dean would be nominated, and then lose to Bush. In fact, this was a typographical error. It was corrected in the next day's paper, published New Year's Day, which you probably missed. My best guess is that Clark will be nominated around the third ballot, pick Dean or Gephardt as his running mate, and go on to beat Bush.
Robert Kuttner's is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe.
