Some of you might remember from four years ago how the rules for Democratic Party delegates made the fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton even more interesting. Well, we might see the same thing in the GOP race for the White House this year.
Let's take two Super Tuesday states as an example, Tennessee and Ohio.
In Ohio, Rick Santorum has fielded delegate slates in all but three of Ohio's Congressional districts - and no delegate slates at all in Tennessee.
Mitt Romney meanwhile has full delegate slates in both states.
So what happens if Santorum were to win the statewide vote in Ohio and Tennessee?
This is the frustrating beauty of the delegate rules, as things are different in those states, two of the most important Super Tuesday battlegrounds.
An official with the Tennessee Republican Party told me Tuesday that even though Santorum has no qualified delegates, if he wins any in the Primary, the state party will help him pick people who are his backers.
So - even though there was a deadline to put together your official delegates, and even though Santorum has zero in Tennessee - the GOP there would save his butt.
That's good news for Santorum, since he's had ballot issues in Virginia, the District of Columbia and Indiana already.
By the way, you can see the qualified delegates in Tennessee at the state elections website .
You'll see that Romney was very organized with all 48 delegate slots filled, Ron Paul had 37 and Gingrich 34. Santorum had ZERO.
Now over in Ohio, things are a little different. Voters in the Buckeye State not only cast a ballot for a Presidential candidate, but also for the actual delegates.
And that's a problem for Santorum, since he did not get any delegates slated in three different Congressional districts.
So, on Super Tuesday, Santorum is already ineligible to win nine delegates in Ohio - even if he were to win all 100% of the vote in those three districts.
An Ohio Republican Party official summed it up pretty simply, telling me yesterday that if you don't have delegates slated, you can't win in those Congressional districts where you don't have supporters on the ballot.
This is not just a Republican Party thing - four years ago, Hillary Clinton lost out on some delegates in Pennsylvania because she didn't have a full slate of delegates before the Primary - a primary that she won by 10 points over some Senator named Barack Obama.
Stay tuned.
