This may be the craziest primary season ever in the history of the American election process. The Democrats look as if they're going to have a brokered convention where the superdelegates get a chance to actually cast meaningful votes. This is causing concern among the Democratic purists who do not mind the superdelegates as long as their function is purely honorary, which, up until this election year, they have been. And in the Republican camp, Mitt Romney's suspension of his own campaign and Mike Huckabee's decision to run until someone has the requisite number of delegates to win the nomination has thrown the Republican Party into a polarized tailspin.

Saturday's primaries and caucuses in Washington state, Kansas, Nebraska, and Louisiana did nothing to alleviate the problems facing both parties.

For the Democrats, with both candidates running an almost dead-even race (Obama trails but has the momentum), Senator Barack Obama's sweep of the three states casting ballots proved that the senator from Illinois was a viable contender for the nomination. His three state wins (and a win in the American Virgin Islands as well) pulls him to within 60 delegates of Senator Hillary Clinton. With the Democrats primary system given to representational apportionment of delegates, neither of the two candidates can hope to get the required 2,025 majority they will need to secure the nomination before the Denver national convention.

And this is to be feared, according to many Democratic strategists.  A convention that does not select a nominee by unanimous decision or by simple majority will lead to a brokered convention, where delegates will become part of a wheeling-and-dealing and advantage/tradeoff politicking for one of the candidates to secure the nomination - in effect, negating the primaries and caucuses that put the delegates there in the first place. If a decision by majority still cannot be reached, the superdelegates will be allowed to cast their votes. Strategists fear this even more than the internecine struggle for votes on the convention floor. Superdelegates are not elected to the convention by popular vote. Superdelegates are delegates that attend the convention because of Democratic Party affiliation, status, and being an elected official and are not representative. The Democrats fear their voting will alienate the electorate, making it seem as if the convention was 'rigged' toward the candidate who eventually wins.

The Republican National Convention may not be as divisive at the convention itself when it comes to voting for the nominee, but the Party itself may be divided so much that it impacts negatively its chances for a win in the general election. Arizona Senator John McCain, barring a miracle of biblical proportions (remember, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is a Baptist preacher), will secure enough delegates to win the Republican nomination going into the convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. However, Mike Huckabee's wins in Louisiana and Kansas on Saturday, February 9, not to mention a close second in Washington state, might signal a key shift in momentum within the Republican electorate. The deeply conservative and religious base of the Republican Party, now no longer divided between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, may pull Huckabee's numbers up considerably by the time the convention rolls around.

And what about those nearly 300 delegates pledged to Romney? If they all voted for Huckabee, would this not place the former governor in a more advantageous position? Although delegates are pledged to a certain candidate, there is no guarantee that those pledged delegates will vote for the candidates they're pledged to vote for. With McCain's problems in appealing to the conservative base of his party and Huckabee's rise as a contender, the Republicans may end up with a brokered convention as well.

Broadcast live on CNN, Senator Barack Obama told a boisterous crowd in Richmond, Virginia, Saturday night that six recent national polls resulted in him beating John McCain in a head-to-head race for president, something that the Clinton camp cannot claim. This not only bolsters Obama's chances of getting the nomination, it gives Huckabee's case a boost as well (or at least gives him a shot at becoming McCain's running mate). With his momentum and his ascendancy in the polls, Obama could become the favorite at a brokered convention in Denver.

But as CNN's chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Tubin, told his fellow political panelists on "Anderson Cooper 360," a poll in February means absolutely nothing in the extended context of things. November - in political time - is a long time away.

It probably would be safe to say that anyone who had ventured forth the idea that both the Republican and Democratic parties would be in such divisive contests after two-thirds of the primaries and caucuses had been held would have been dismissed as a remote possibility even just a few weeks ago. Political strategists in both parties are worried about what it will do to their respective parties' chances in the general election. And it looks as if everything will pivot around the national conventions in Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Sources:

CNN television

"Election Center 2008: Primaries & Caucuses," CNNPolitics.com

"Obama fires up Virginia," CNN.com