Delegate Hunt: A Hard Slogging in Early Primaries

Whether or not a candidate can break from the pack in the earliest voting states, the period between Jan. 29 and Feb. 5 -- when a series of mega-states are set to vote -- is being cast as the decisive moment of the presidential campaign.

In that eight-day period, some of the largest states in the country -- Florida, California, Illinois, Georgia and New York to name a few -- will cast their votes in the presidential nominating process. Candidates are already gaming out their "win" strategies for the period.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's campaign envisions a cross-country sweep beginning in California and extending to New York; former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) hopes to dominate the South; Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is concentrating heavily on Florida; Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) could make a run through the Midwest, starting with his home state.

And, yet strategists for the top-tier campaigns are also bracing for the possibility that this period could prove to be more of a swamp than a launching pad, one that delivers a split decision that would raise the possibility of a protracted battle for the presidential nomination in both parties.

That's because many of those nearly two-dozen states operate under complex rules for allocating delegates that could make it difficult for even the strongest candidates to lock up enough support to win the nomination. The challenge is even greater because of the high cost of campaigning in those states, which will force candidates to pick and choose in deciding where to spend the most time and money.

"The uniqueness and complexity of the 2008 primary calendar combined with the amounts of money involved make the hunt for enough delegates to win the nomination into a three-dimensional Rubik's Cube," said Ben Ginsberg, an adviser to the presidential bid of former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.).

A prime example: California, which has 173 total Republican delegates -- only fourteen of which are awarded to the candidate who wins the statewide vote. The other 159 delegates are doled out district by district, meaning that the true battleground in the Golden State might not be conducted over the television airwaves but rather in the hand-to-hand combat of direct mail and phone calls.

Or Florida, which has moved up its primary to Jan. 29. The Sunshine State promises 185 pledged Democratic delegates (out of a total of 210), but the Democratic National Committee has already threatened to strip Florida of those delegates, a penalty for moving the primary into the early "window" reserved for Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Such a scenario already has some campaigns pondering the possibility of skipping Florida entirely to husband crucial resources for states that offer delegates that count.

"Under the current DNC laws, these [states] essentially become beauty contests," said a top strategist for one of the Democratic presidential contenders who spoke on background because of the sensitivity of the strategic decision making. "They could be important from a momentum perspective, but as it relates to delegates they aren't going to contribute to the outcome."

The dilemma over delegates is one of many complications caused by the compression of the 2008 nominating calendar, a series of developments being chronicled as part of washingtonpost.com's "Fast Track Campaign" series. The series seeks to provide an ongoing and interactive look at how the changes in the calendar are forcing campaigns to make tough choices about where to allocate money and candidate time nearly seven months before a single vote is cast.

How delegates are parceled out in each state is usually of interest only to the most ardent political junkies. Meaningful convention floor fights are a thing of the past as the crush of media and money in places like Iowa and New Hampshire typically produce a nominee months before the choice is formalized.

Chris Lehane, an unaffiliated Democratic strategist, said that the possibility of a convention fight is more likely now than at anytime in recent political memory. "It's now mathematically possible," he said.

It's that possibility that has sent campaign officials scurrying to revisit the delegate rules to make sure every eventuality is covered.

On the Democratic side, the situation is relatively clear-cut. The DNC determines the number of delegates allocated to each state using a formula that rewards states and congressional districts based on population and past Democratic performance. Aside from these "pledged" delegates ¿ who are required to support whichever candidates win their district or state during the primary -- are a group of "superdelegates" made up of mostly members of Congress, Democratic governors and DNC officials who will attend the convention automatically regardless of which candidate wins their state's primary or caucus.

The GOP, by contrast, has empowered state parties to adopt their own methods of doling out delegates, creating a patchwork process that even the best staffed campaigns are struggling to understand.

Florida presents perhaps the most intriguing challenge of the early Republican primaries. Thirty nine delegates are awarded to the winner of the statewide contest while 75 delegates -- or three for every congressional district -- are parceled out to whichever candidate wins the most votes in each district.

With huge demands being made on these Republican candidates' war chests, campaign strategists are looking for ways to ensure the most delegates at the least cost. Although a number of congressional districts are clustered around the state's population center in the Miami metropolitan area, the media market covering that area is extremely expensive. Campaigns must decide whether it would be worth the huge expense to go after the delegate-rich Miami area or opt for a northern Florida strategy ¿ trying to pick off districts that sit in far cheaper media markets or may be won by a flurry of direct mail and phone calls.

Multiply that dilemma more than a dozen times and you have some sense of the challenges facing each of these Republican campaigns.

In states such as New York (with 101 delegates) and New Jersey (52 delegates) -- both set to vote on Feb. 5 -- the primaries are winner-take-all affairs, a process that may deter many candidates from spending time and money there. Giuliani is well ahead in both states and with no chance of picking off handfuls of delegates in the congressional districts, it seems likely that Romney, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Thompson will largely ignore the state and focus instead on states where they have a better chance of piling up delegates.

Thompson's home state of Tennessee, which will vote on Feb. 5, has perhaps the strangest of all delegate rules. If any candidate receives more than 50 percent of the statewide vote, he is awarded all of Tennessee's 28 at-large delegates. If no candidate takes a simple majority, the at-large delegates are parceled out based on the proportion of the vote a candidates receives.

For example, if Thompson were to win 45 percent of the vote statewide, he would receive 45 percent of the 28 delegates, and so on. However, a candidate can't qualify to receive a proportional amount of the delegates unless he wins 20 percent or more of the statewide vote.

As for the 27 delegates available district by district, any candidate who takes 50 percent or higher in any district will receives the three delegates. If no one captures at least 50 percent of the vote, the highest vote getter in the district will be awarded two delegates while the second-place finisher will get one.