It was New Hampshire, 1984, the Democratic Primary. Senator Gary Hart had come in second in Iowa caucus. He was from a neighboring state, Colorado. He had momentum. I was his Texas Gulf Coast Coordinator in name only as we had no campaign staff or funds to run a campaign. All the funds were being spent in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Senator Gary Hart from had just 12 years before been the national campaign manager for the George McGovern campaign that lost every state but one. Now he was running for President against the former Vice President Walter Mondale. He was young and was the outsider.

I was in Washington DC the night of the New Hampshire primary. It was snowing and I went back to my hotel room to watch the returns. Shockingly Gary Hart was winning over the establishment’s candidate, VP Mondale.

I knew what was going to happen next. Texas might become a factor in who got the nomination. I would need to find a campaign headquarters, sign up volunteers, find supporters and get ready for the campaign.

The next morning I checked in with my answering service. The owner said “where are you?” She reported that I had over 100 phone calls from folks who want to help Gary Hart. What fun, what excitement.

And then the campaign moved into the South and Mondale started to ask just what experience Hart had to become President. “Where’s the beef” became his slogan. And the Hart campaign started to lose its momentum. The rest is history; Hart went on to San Francisco to the national convention and finally conceded to Mondale who went on to lose to President Ronald Reagan. The establishment won the primary race but lost the national election.

Fast forward to 2008, Gary Hart is meeting with the Mayor of New York Bloomberg and some other former political leaders to see if there should be some type on independent campaign for the office or President. And the establishment candidate, Senator Clinton, is about to lose New Hampshire. But there is a difference this year. Due to the big lose in 1972 and perhaps even in 1984 the party changed the rules to assure that the establishment had a real voice in who got the Democratic nomination. They are called Super Delegates. There are 852 of them this year.

According to Poe.com “At this year’s Democratic Convention, 4,049 delegates will vote. Hillary must get 2,025 votes to win the nomination. This is the so-called “magic number”. The 852 super delegates total 42 percent of the magic number. In a close race, their votes could prove decisive.

At this writing, CNN reports that 257 super delegates have already pledged their votes: of them, 154 (60 percent) have pledged for Hillary; 50 (19 percent) for Barack Obama; and 33 (13 percent) for John Edwards”.

So the question in my mind can Senator Obama win a majority of the primaries and still not have the majority of delegates before the Denver convention and then lose due to the support of Senator Clinton from the super delegates? What would that do to the support for a Bloomberg for President?

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