Don't bet yet on only one brokered convention

WashPost columnist Ruth Marcus explains why the Dems can get gridlocked, too (and by all means read the whole thing for the 1984-and-related backstory). / Hat tip: Bob Lutts, CT political Oracle & peerless constitutional Constructionist :}. / Emphases added:

...Indeed, 2008 is looking like 1984 on steroids: For the poorly organized, underfinanced insurgent (Hart), substitute a candidate (Barack Obama) with the money and organization to compete with the establishment candidate (Hillary Clinton). For a front-runner about whom the party faithful are hardly enthusiastic (Mondale), substitute a candidate (Clinton) who has a loyal, energized following.

In addition, the biggest factor pointing to an extended, delegate-by-delegate slog is one that didn't exist in 1984: the relentless arithmetic of the party's proportional representation rules, in which candidates receive delegates according to their share of the vote in each congressional district and, for a smaller number, statewide. Although that provision was adopted in 1988, it has never become relevant, because a clear front-runner has emerged in every contest since.

However, in a close race, the rules make it difficult for a single candidate to pile up a big enough margin to amass the necessary number of delegates. Given the contours of this contest, that may well not happen in the supposed tsunami of voting on Feb. 5, at which point Democrats will have picked 1,818 delegates, 45 percent of the total.

One factor is that the biggest Feb. 5 prize, California, has an open primary on the Democratic side and a closed contest on the Republican side, meaning that independents, who tilt toward Obama, could bolster his showing there.

If the race continues beyond Feb. 5, as the Mondale precedent suggests it might, superdelegates could come into play. These bigwigs -- governors, members of Congress, Democratic National Committee members -- account for 796, or nearly 20 percent, of the Democratic delegates. They are finger-in-the-wind fickle. But they could be decisive in a close contest, a factor that would tend to help Clinton, who has already amassed a superdelegate lead.

Then there are the graduate seminar-level questions that could arise if the contest becomes really close or even heads into the convention unsettled. One is the Edwards Factor. Former North Carolina senator John Edwards's path to the nomination seems blocked, but that does not necessarily render him irrelevant. Edwards can keep collecting delegates so long as he receives 15 percent of the vote in a congressional district or statewide.

If so, he could have sway over a potentially decisive share of delegates whom he could urge to back a particular candidate, and his inclination in Obama's direction seems clear. Edwards's delegates would not be obligated to follow his direction, but his view would be influential.

Similarly, and this one is for real rules junkies, there could be a convention fight over seating the Michigan and Florida delegations. Those states have supposedly been stripped of their delegates as punishment for accelerating their primaries to before Feb. 5, but it's not entirely fanciful to imagine that a challenge to their credentials could determine the outcome...

Again, the whole column is highy recommended. / Especially for those who, like me, look (a) fondly Backward to the actual Nominating Conventions of old, AND also (b) ~ eagerly Forward, to the impending political Proof of modern Chaos Theory :). Bring It On. ;>