Democratic Presidential Nomination Race Seen Ending by July 4

By Eric Green

The race for the Democratic presidential nomination will probably end in June and certainly by America's Independence Day on July 4, political analyst Larry Sabato tells America.gov.

Sabato, a University of Virginia professor of politics, said the race will end "immediately" if Illinois Senator Barack Obama pulls an upset and defeats New York Senator Hillary Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary April 22, a development the professor said would guarantee Obama's nomination. A win by Clinton in Pennsylvania is expected to prolong the race until the last Democratic primaries are held June 3 in Montana and South Dakota.

Sabato said that after that date the party's superdelegates will announce whether they support Obama or Clinton for the nomination. Sabato said the Democratic Party wants its nominee to be determined before it holds its national convention August 25-28 in Denver. (See "Superdelegates May Decide Democratic Nominee ( http://www.america.gov/st/elections08-english/2008/February/20080204190330hmnietsua0.9187281.html ).")

Described by the Wall Street Journal as "probably the most quoted college professor" about politics in the United States, Sabato said the Democratic and Republican national conventions no longer play the deciding role in who wins their parties' respective nominations.

The Republican convention last had a major fight regarding their nomination in 1976 in a race between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. That contest lasted into the convention, Sabato said, because the Republican primaries and caucuses produced a near tie between Ford and Reagan.

But conventions in those years were more important than they are today in picking a candidate, Sabato indicated. Even earlier, in 1968, only a small number of the 50 U.S. states held primaries, with the rest of the states "basically controlled by state-party bosses" who decided what candidate would be chosen, Sabato said.

The primaries were seen as "mere preliminaries" to the "real battle of the convention," where a candidate was selected, he said.

But following what Sabato described as the "fiasco" of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, remembered for its clashes between anti-Vietnam War protesters and police, and the chaos in the convention hall, the whole concept of how the party should select a candidate changed.

Sabato said the decision was made to take "power away from the party bosses and give it to the people." That resulted, he said, in today's system of states holding primaries or caucuses.

The only real role now for the convention, said Sabato, is to serve as a tiebreaker in the event of a "fluky" result in which no candidate has secured the nomination.

Sabato estimated odds of 65 percent to 70 percent in favor of the Democratic nominee's being decided long before the convention in Denver.

OBAMA SEEN AS DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE

John Fortier, a research fellow for the American Enterprise Institute, agrees with Sabato that it is unlikely the Democratic nominee will be decided by a floor fight at the Denver convention.

This is despite the fact that "for the first time in many years, we have a closely contested race that will go down to nearly the end of primary season," said Fortier, who is the principal contributor to the institute's Election Reform Project, which aims to improve American election policies and administration.

Fortier told America.gov that he expects Obama to "emerge as the close but clear winner" of the Democratic nomination.

"If Obama were to suddenly collapse" as a candidate, "then a convention scenario is possible. But that storyline is not very likely," said Fortier.

The reason U.S. political parties "do not have convention fights is that the rolling primaries usually lead to a front-runner [emerging] relatively early and all of the other candidates dropping out or lagging far behind," Fortier said.

"Typically, if a candidate emerges as the front-runner, the other candidates have trouble raising money. Endorsements and superdelegate support also follow the leader."

Fortier foresaw only a few ways for a convention fight to emerge in 2008, which would include a "shifting set of leaders" for the nomination, the immersion of the front-runner in a last-minute scandal, or a health crisis that prompted the front-runner to withdraw from the race.

Political observers thought, said Fortier, that the Republican presidential field might yield no clear front-runner. But, he said, "the system favors bolstering the winner" of the early primaries, which turned out to be Senator John McCain of Arizona. McCain's victories in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries propelled him to becoming the Republicans' presumptive nominee.

Fortier said that in the February 5 Super Tuesday primaries, Clinton and Obama essentially were tied for the Democratic nomination. But Obama's 11 straight wins in the nominating contests following Super Tuesday "have given him enough of a lead" to make catching him difficult, said Fortier. However, if the two Democratic candidates remain essentially tied by the end of the primary season in June, then the outcome would be "much less certain, and a convention fight would not be out of the question," he said.

For additional information, see "The Path to the 2008 Presidential Nomination ( http://www.america.gov/st/elections08-english/2008/January/20080107110302hmnietsua0.6430017.html )."

Source: U.S. Department of State

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com

   _   _