Winner-take-all: Bonus or bust for Giuliani?

Eight years ago, Sen. John McCain went into the winner-take-all California primary against George W. Bush, hoping to score an upset win.

“There’s no doubt of the absolute importance of California,” said McCain as he toured the state. California Republicans chose Bush, giving him 61 percent to McCain’s 38 percent, dooming McCain’s bid.

McGovern's win in 1972
In 1972, George McGovern, the most left-leaning of the Democratic presidential contenders, was battling the more traditional liberal Hubert Humphrey and the conservative George Wallace, a fierce opponent of school busing to achieve racial integration.

As political historian Rhodes Cook pointed out, the 1972 primary season ended with the three rivals each having won major primaries and each having garnered about one-quarter of the total Democratic votes.

McGovern won the June 6 California primary with 43 percent of the vote, edging Humphrey who won 39 percent.

Due to California's winner-take-all rule, McGovern got all of California’s delegates and entered the party’s convention with a big lead in the delegate tally.

At the convention, McGovern’s foes tried to strip him of many of his California delegates, reducing his share based on his 43 percent of the statewide vote.

But McGovern won the convention battle and got the nomination. He met disaster in November, winning only one state as Wallace and Humphrey Democrats abandoned him by the millions.

A Democratic Party commission dominated by allies of Walter Mondale and Sen. Edward Kennedy changed the party rules in 1981, but kept winner-take-all primaries in states such as California, Florida and Pennsylvania.

Jackson challenges winner-take-all
In 1984 Jesse Jackson, challenging Mondale for the nomination, charged that winner-take-all primaries were a form of racial discrimination and should be scrapped in favor of proportional primaries.

“People know these rules were stacked, they know who stacked them, and they know why they were stacked,” Jackson told The New York Times in 1984.

As a result of an accord between Jackson and 1988 nominee Michael Dukakis, the Democrats got rid of winner-take-all primaries.

But the idea of giving the plurality candidate all the fruits of victory has its defenders.

Observing the struggle in 1988 between Jackson and Dukakis, Frank Fahrenkopf, Republican national chairman under President Reagan said, “Winner-take-all primaries close the fight for the nomination quicker. Then there's time before the national convention to heal wounds. At the convention, you can give the presidential candidate the full spotlight.”

But the Democrats’ lack of winner-take-all primaries since 1988 hasn’t prevented them from settling on a nominee very early in the primary season: Both Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004 had the nomination secured by February.

As the '72 McGovern example proves, the winner-take-all method does not always result in a happy outcome for the party.

If Giuliani uses winner-take-all victories to catapult to the nomination and then wins in November, strategists may give the method a closer look.

NBC/National Journal Reporter Matthew Berger contributed to this story.

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