Keeping Score On Super Tuesday

This analysis was written by CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield.

"You seem a bit nervous," he says

"Well," she replies, "Yes...it's my first flight."

"I understand completely," the pilot says. "It's my first flight, too."

Those of you looking at February 5th with a blend of anticipation and confusion might be comforted to know that we political media types share your emotions; we've never seen anything like it either.

Twenty two (or maybe 24, depending on how you count) states will be holding primaries or caucuses under rules that are radically different between parties and even between states within the parties. How do you -- and we -- keep score? How do you -- and we --know what to look for? Which states are likely to matter most? And how the candidates intend to campaign?

Good questions, if I do say so myself. So here's an attempt to clear up the picture a bit by offering three points worth remembering.

Winner Take All vs. Winner Take Some

Republicans permit states to give all their delegates to the candidate who wins the statewide race; Democrats haven't permitted this since the raucous 1972 convention fight over California's winner-take-all process. Seven states in the GOP use the winner-take-all system and it's very good news for John McCain. Back when Rudy Giuliani was riding high, his supporters pushed through rule changes to make New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut winner-take-all. Even before Giuliani's expected withdrawal today, McCain had strong leads in all those states; throw in Delaware, and McCain's home state of Arizona, and it means that McCain will almost surely gain 250 delegates without breaking a sweat.

Mitt Romney is a cinch to win Utah with its 36 delegates. The one remaining winner-take-all state is Missouri with 58 delegates It is likely to be a major Super Tuesday battleground, especially because the large number of evangelical Christians there means it is a prime target for Mike Huckabee as well.

By contrast, Democrats are big fans of "proportionality" -- if you win a certain percentage in a state -- 25 percent in most cases -- you're going to get some delegates. In most cases, the key to understanding the Democratic system is to look not at states, but at congressional districts; and a candidate can do just about as well capturing delegates by winning 40 percent of the vote in a district as 60 percent. This explains why Barack Obama will be campaigning in Hillary Clinton's New York backyard, and why she will be hitting parts of Illinois.

This also means that when you watch us reporting the results next Tuesday, the same words will likely mean very different things: "McCain wins New York" means he has won every delegate. "Clinton wins New York" means -- well, it depends on how many congressional districts each candidate has won.

In the Republican Race, Some States Are More Equal Than Others

It's not brain surgery to realize that California and Texas count for more than Alaska and Rhode Island. But the Republicans add a significant wrinkle to this exercise in "duh!-ness." They award "bonus" delegates to states that voted for the party's presidential contender in the last election.

So what? Well, it means that Missouri has more delegates than New Jersey; Georgia has more delegates than Illinois, despite the differences in population. This has potential significance for Mitt Romney. If -- if -- he can win those conservative states, it will mean a basket of bonus delegates that might help offset McCain's expected harvest in the Northeast winner-take-all states.

California, Here We Come

Whatever else their strategies, the major candidates in both parties will be focusing on California.

For Democrats, there are simply too many delegates at stake -- some 441 of them. Hillary Clinton can look to the large Latino base and to the white working class Democrats where she has done well so far. Obama can look not just to African-Americans, but to the better-educated, more upscale Democrats in and around Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose.

On the Republican side, California may be Mitt Romney's best hope to employ what will likely be his latest approach: that he is the true reliable Reagan conservative.

This may seem odd, given the presence of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a pro-choice, pro-gay rights, environmentally-progressive, post-partisan governor. But Schwarzenegger is not emblematic of the California GOP. The rank and file out there -- especially those in the interior, in the Central Valley and in the fast-growing counties of Riverside and San Bernardino -- are conservative, given to choosing more conservative candidates, even if they are less electable in a general election. (Ah-nold, remember, never ran in a contested Republican primary; he got the statehouse in 2003 in a recall election).

So if Romney can manage to convince conservatives in California than John McCain is an anti-tax-cutting, campaign finance-reforming, immigrant-coddling politician, he may have a chance to win that most populous state and keep his hopes alive for the tests down the road.

Romney's challenge, in turn, will be vastly complicated if Mike Huckabee stays in the race, with his appeal to social conservatives. If Rudy Giuliani is doing McCain a favor by leaving the race, Huckabee would perform an even more valuable service to McCain by staying in.
By Jeff Greenfield