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Signposts for Super TuesdayIt will be a nutty night. What to look for.

By Jeff GreenfieldPosted Monday, Feb. 4, 2008, at 6:10 PM ET

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The Democrats

Thinly sliced: If Republicans treat their primary contests like a poker game—you win the hand, you get the pot—the Democrats treat theirs like a parent cutting up a birthday cake at a kids' party, with every slice is as equal as possible.

This may well lead to some serious head-scratching. In California, for example, if Clinton wins with 50.1 percent of the vote in a congressional district that has three delegates, then she gets to take two delegates, and Obama gets to take one. But if she wins a congressional district with four delegates 60 percent to 40 percent, she gets two and Obama gets two. (The number of delegates allocated to each district depends on the Democratic vote for president last time around.) In this and just about every midsize and large state, it is possible to win more votes than your opponent—and fewer delegates. (See College, Electoral, Baleful Potential of.) So, what states will matter for the Democratic race, and how will victory or defeat likely be assigned?

Winning on the other's turf: Barack Obama has closed a wide gap with Hillary Clinton in national polls, and in many of the Super Tuesday states. But has he closed enough to win in her one-time strongholds? Or, on the other hand, will Clinton pick off states Obama was counting on? Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are one-time Clinton states that are more or less in play; Clinton victories in Alabama, Tennessee, and Colorado will count as pick-ups for her. And California is … well, it's California. If Obama manages to erase Clinton's once double-digit lead, there's little doubt what the headline the next day will be.

But what happens next in the race if Clinton narrowly wins most of the states where she once held wide leads? That depends, I think, on how much we treat Super Tuesday like an election, or as part of a process. In an election, it doesn't matter how close you come. When it's over, it's over. (The proper cliché here is: "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.")

There's no doubt that Super Tuesday will look like an election, with national maps and running tallies. If Clinton wins in most of the big states, her campaign will likely argue that she got the most votes in the biggest primary test in history. The Obama campaign will likely note that Super Tuesday decided nothing but the allocation of delegates, that the count is reasonably close, and that about 20 states have yet to weigh in. Moreover, if their strategy works, and Obama wins in the red states that are up for grabs—places like Missouri, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Georgia—the campaign's argument will likely be: "She won where any Democrat can win. We won where we have got to win to take the White House."

The slog that follows: Assuming Super Tuesday does not resolve the Democratic contest, the next tests—Maryland; Virginia; Washington, D.C.; and Wisconsin—look good for Obama. Ohio and Texas on March 4 look good for Clinton. After that, there's a weeks-long period when almost nothing of consequence happens. If the race is still tight, we can look for increasing speculation about the fate of Florida and Michigan—two states stripped of their delegates by the Democratic National Committee because they violated the primary calendar, and which may turn out to hold the balance of power. We can also look for the nearly 800 superdelegates—elected and party officials who can choose whichever candidate they like—to be the focus of unprecedented attention, pressure, and persuasion. Look also for a wholesale rush to senior-citizen centers, where retired politicians and journalists will patiently explain to their younger colleagues how to cover a convention where the outcome is really in doubt.