Despite the apparent advantage Hillary Clinton held heading into the February 5th "Super Tuesday" primaries, Barack Obama pursued a broader strategy in his chase for the nomination. As a hedge against the predicted strong showing by Clinton in those states (which, of course, ended up a mixed result and a net gain for Obama), he organized in many of the smaller states. These were the predominately "red" states, many of which held caucuses instead of primaries, and had been ignored by the Clinton campaign as they banked on a blow-out win on Super Tuesday and chose not to "waste" resources in states they wouldn't be competing for in the fall.

Obama's record-breaking fundraising allowed him the flexibility to organize the smaller caucus states while staying competitive in the early primaries, too. It is his sweep of these states which gives him his current lead in pledged delegates.

Few Democratic candidates have followed this strategy. Spending money in safe Republican rural states doesn't strike most as a bargain. But one who did adopt it used it to emerge from a crowded field with a majority of pledged delegates at the convention: the man who devised the modern system, George McGovern.

After the debacle of the 1968 Democratic Convention, where the antiwar left and other activists felt shut out by the "establishment" of party bosses and elected officials (who had exercised control of the Party since roughly 1796), the Democrats empaneled a special commission to study the delegate selection process with a view towards bringing more grassroots participation into the system. McGovern was its Chairman, and largely wrote the new rules providing for more direct election of delegates and drastically reducing the influence of the party structure and elected officeholders.

Although several candidates sought the nomination in 1972, the first cycle under the new rules, Sen. Ed Muskie of Maine, the party's 1968 Vice Presidential candidate, was the prohibitive favorite. He famously broke down in tears on a New Hampshire street in the snow while speaking in protest of a newspaper's treatment of his wife's finances, and was reduced in the public eye. He still won New Hampshire, but was no longer viable as a national frontrunner. The other candidates were McGovern, Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington, Rep. Shirley Chisholm of New York, and former Gov. George Wallace of Alabama (who had returned to the Democratic Party after a strong third party run in '68).

The race was wide open, but McGovern knew the rules best, and made his play in states with proportionate representation (there were still some winner-take-all states at the time), and the rural states in the West and Southwest which were dominated by Republicans nationally. Wallace was running strongly until an assassin's bullets forced his withdrawal, having won 6 states - but others were winning, too: Chisholm won three states, Muskie won five, Jackson took six. But McGovern was racking up the delegate totals, and sweeping the west.

1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey entered the race late, but won five states himself, including PA and OH. But the "Stop McGovern" movement was too late. The South Dakotan had captured a clear, if very narrow, majority of the delegates, giving him control over the Rules, Platform, and Credentials Committees - the ability to run the convention as he saw fit. Late challenges to delegates threatened a floor fight, but again, McGovern held the majority.

Here is the map of the states in the 1972 campaign. Notice how closely Obama's wins mirrored McGovern's. Of course there are some obvious exceptions, as McGovern won New York, Massachusetts, and Texas, and Obama took Maryland, Iowa, and his home state of Illinois, but it remains the same strategy.

Worked for McGovern. We'll see how it plays out for Obama. His opponent is among the best in finding loopholes in the rules. Expect to hear the argument that voters in states which will not vote for the Democratic ticket should not be determining the nominee against the will of the "true blue" states.