PRIMARIES: Uncommitted

Whether genuinely baffled, simply supercautious or just plain ornery, U.S. primary voters continue to dangle the presidential nominations tantalizingly beyond the reach of all contenders. A victor's smile and glowing predictions seem only to ensure a comeuppance seven days later. As the primary trail nears an apparently inconclusive end, a clutch of uncommitted delegates to both Democratic and Republican Conventions has been dealt a hot—and potentially decisive—hand. They may well determine the 1976 nominees.

Although many of the powerful uncommitted are political bosses and officeholders, a substantial number are mainly middle-class Americans with long records of hard-slogging service to their parties—ringing doorbells, running Xerox machines, driving voters to the polls on election days. They include an air-pollution technician from Virginia, a haberdasher from Kansas, a housewife from Oklahoma and a community antipoverty organizer from New York. Some Governors, big-city mayors and state chairmen head uncommitted groups, but their persuasive powers may be lost on the individual delegates; many intend to vote their own consciences.

As of last week there were 455 uncommitted Democratic delegates and 201 Republicans. Those totals will grow in the final six primaries, and as fourteen states that choose delegates in caucuses complete that process. There will be some whittling away too as some uncommitted jump to a candidate.

Barring yet another surprise, President Ford and Ronald Reagan, each of whom won three primaries last week, will emerge from the delegate selection process just short of the 1,130 delegates required for the Republican nomination. Democrat Jimmy Carter is expected to be several hundred delegates short of the 1,505 needed to snare the prize.

If these figures hold, 100 to 150 uncommitted Republican delegates will have the power to do what 6 million G.O.P. primary voters apparently could not: choose between Ford and Reagan. From 200 to 300 Democratic uncommitted may open the door to Carter—or bring on a brokered convention that could outweigh eleven million votes cast in Democratic primaries.

The situations in both parties:

REPUBLICANS. Currently 67 Republican uncommitted are thought to be leaning to Reagan, 34 to Ford. The remaining 100 Republican uncommitted are considered wooable and winnable.

Many see little to choose ideologically between the two: both suit their conservative instincts just fine. Surprisingly few are holding out in hope of a job or other favor. A number miss in Ford the image of a decisive leader that they perceive in Reagan, and yet they are reluctant to discard an incumbent who they believe has performed passably well in difficult circumstances.