Answer: not all that super this time around. Or rather, a little more super than the last one and a lot less super than the one two elections ago. Here’s why.

Understand that the super-ness of Super Tuesday depends not only on what’s at stake but also when it occurs in the primary calendar. These two factors largely determine its heft in the grander scheme of the nomination process. The clear winner for the super-est of Super Tuesdays was the one in 2008. Not only was it much earlier (Day Iowa+33) than in 2012 (Day Iowa+63), but there were 21 states in play on that day. And not just any old states. The list included California, New York and Illinois. There were 1,081 delegates at stake, nearly 50% of the total, making it the granddaddy of all Super Tuesdays past and probably future.

Such a schedule and distribution of awarding delegates sorely tries a campaign from just about every angle. A campaign not only has to raise massive amounts of money to be competitive (which means being able to buy media time), it has to mobilize and organize a ton boots on the ground and strategically allocate its resources, including the candidates time, to its best advantage. This is why Huckabee never was really in the ballgame in 2008.

Despite his win in Iowa and strong showing in South Carolina, there was no way for him to capitalize on those wins by raising the funds needed in time to compete on the airways in 21 states, let only organize an effective ground game across such a widely dispersed turf. He was confined to a strategy of draining off what he could from the more conservative and evangelically religious states. But even that did not pan out. He ended up only with wins in Kansas and Louisiana and added only a few dozen more delegates to the approximately 160 he won on Super Tuesday.

Romney was in a do-or-die situation by the time Super Tuesday rolled around that year. McCain had scored a big victory just a week before in Florida. Giuliani, who had put all of his marbles in the Florida basket, dropped out immediately after his miserable showing (15%) there, and virtually all of his support went to McCain. Prior to Florida, McCain was still polling in the low 20s, despite his wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina. After Florida his numbers jumped to the high 30s and into the 40s. So Romney had to come out of Super Tuesday with a whole bunch of delegates and be perceived as the “winner” that day. He had to win more states than McCain, more delegates and notch victories in at least one or two of the behemoths: CA, NY or IL.

He failed on all counts. He lost the state tally 9 to 7 and did not manage to win any of the big three. McCain walked away with more than 600 delegates, and Romney with less than a third of that, much closer to Huckabee’s take than to McCain’s. Two days later he played the good soldier (with perhaps an eye on 2012 and not ruffling feathers) and withdrew. Clear sailing for McCain at that point.

In 2012, a change in the rules regarding apportionment of delegates ended up pushing many primaries back on the calendar, resulting in a more elongated schedule. Super Tuesday was not held until two months after Iowa (still on January 3, as in 2008) and there was a much less impressive array of states on the line. Only 10 states held their primaries that day, and the biggest of the bunch were Georgia and Ohio. In total, only a little over 400 delegates were at stake. Santorum’s surge had already run its course by then, beaten back by Romney’s solid wins in Arizona, Michigan and Washington in the preceding week.

Super Tuesday was simply dotting the “i’s” on a manuscript already written. Still, it took Santorum another month to formally give up the ghost and Gingrich and Paul another two months. That’s how much they hated Romney; and as I said in my previous post, that was more of a factor in hurting Romney in the general election more than the primary calendar was. It bespoke of deep rifts in the party’s factions.

So, what role will Super Tuesday play this time around? Well, first it comes sooner after Iowa than in the other two years, four days earlier than 2008 (Day Iowa+33=March 1). There are 14 contests, but with only one big kahuna in the lot: Texas, with 155 delegates. In all there will be 565 bound delegates at stake.

Because it is before March 15, under RNC rules all of the states must award delegates on a proportional basis. But there’s a catch. Most of them also have qualifying thresholds to win delegates, ranging from 5% to 20%, with half of them requiring a 15% or 20% showing to get any delegates at all. So, for those laggard campaigns, hovering in the polls in the low double digits or high single digits, which manage to find the money to stick around until then, this will become the make or break day.

Even so, if a campaign has not won at least one of the first four contests (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada), it is darn near impossible to have any legitimate shot at the nomination without impressively cleaning up on this day with several state victories. And doing so without a victory in the first four would be a one in a thousand occurrence. Don’t count on it.

It’s been referred to as the “SEC” primary (for those of you with no knowledge of college sports in the U.S., the SEC is a sports conference of universities and the letters stand for Southeast Conference). What this means is that there are a substantial number of states where Cruz will play well on Super Tuesday this year: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee and, of course, Texas. He’s been smartly working the South in the last few months. But even a big win in Texas and other southern states doesn’t really help Cruz that much (except in terms of piling up delegates). A win is expected in Texas and primary season is, to a large degree, a game of expectations. On the other hand, if he should somehow get his backside kicked in his home state, he’s done for.

Cruz’s challenge lies beyond the bible belt states of Super Tuesday. The bigger question is whether he can break the mold of Huckabee and Santorum and score in the big northern and less conservative states. For that reason, how he performs in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Vermont on this day could well be a sign of his fate in 2016.