Picture this: A deadlocked convention, a jammed meeting hall, hundreds of delegates and supporters clamoring for Tsongas, Clinton or Kerrey. No one knows who the nominee will be. And then, a moment of high drama. Up to the microphone, to deliver the keynote address, strides Mario M. Cuomo.

This is all scheduled to happen -- this coming weekend, in fact. Governor Cuomo has agreed to be the keynote speaker on Saturday at a mock Democratic convention held by students at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.

The convention has been a quadrennial tradition at the school since 1908. It is always held for the party that does not control the White House, and it has an impressive record in forecasting the name of the party's actual nominee. Since 1952 the students have correctly pre-staged the real event for every single convention except 1972, when delegates selected Edward M. Kennedy rather than the eventual nominee, George McGovern.

So one big question is whether Mr. Cuomo might just wow his student audience into giving him the nomination.

"Yes, on the second ballot, absolutely it's possible that will happen," said John Donaldson, a senior who is majoring in history at the school and who is a coordinator of the event.

The students' voting is based on their research of likely voting patterns in each of the 50 states. But Mr. Donaldson said he believed that the convention could well be deadlocked among the current crop of declared candidates. The delegates could then turn to Mr. Cuomo, "just like they might do in New York City," where the convention will be held in July, Mr. Donaldson said.

Another question is just why Mr. Cuomo, whose national prominence skyrocketed after he delivered the keynote speech to the Democratic convention in San Francisco in 1984, chose to deliver this particular keynote.

It comes just three days before a string of "Super Tuesday" primaries in the South, so could a student stampede to Cuomo be a hint to voters that he's angling for a repetition in July? Or is he wistful for the glory days of 1984? Or is he just doing it for the money? (He will receive a fee for his speech, though both his office and the student coordinators declined to reveal the amount.)

Past speakers at the event have included Harry S. Truman, Richard M. Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, though none ever won the students' nomination in the same year he spoke. Asked whether Mr. Cuomo was hoping to be the Democratic nominee -- at the mock convention, that is -- his spokeswoman, Anne W. Crowley, said, "No comment." Meanwhile, it's on to Lexington, and students there said the suspense was building.