Can you recall a more super set of seven days? Sunday gave us the Super Bowl, which lived up to its name for pretty much everyone in the world outside of New England. I mean, everyone loves an underdog, and how great was it that the biggest news of the day wasn’t Tom Petty?
And arguably more super than the Super Bowl—a game which is manufactured expressly for entertainment—came just two days later, thanks to boring-old politics! There were no Victoria’s Secret ads to lure people to the polls, no Doritos, no promises of perfection.
And yet they came. In droves. Droves so multitudinous that some places clean ran out of ballots. And what drew them? Good old-fashioned Patriotism. The real kind.
Super Tuesday was super, no matter who your candidate. Because, what makes something super isn’t always fantastic, but it is signficant. Merriam-Webster says super’s gotta be:
- of high grade or quality, used as a generalized term of approval,
- very large or powerful, or
- exhibiting the characteristics of its type to an extreme or excessive degree
You could call the primary season at least two of those things most times. (And the Super Bowl with all of its trimmings certainly fit the bill on all three counts.) Sure, there’s the excess—when Clinton has to loan herself $5 million to keep up we have to start asking questions about scale—and primaries in 24 states signifies size and power, but the day was pretty great, too.
It was super, quality-wise, because of its popularity. True, we live in an era of rock-bottom expectations when it comes to politics, but still, we should be excited that politics is reaching such a fever pitch in heretofore quiet places. John Legend is not only a spokesman for Lexus, he (along with a cast of other pop culture stars) is singing about Barack Obama! And Clinton and McCain (and I guess Huckabee still) should take heart: If young people are voting there’s still time to reach them before March Madness.
And then super reared its head again today. The news is abuzz with the significance of superdelegates. Which essentially means delegates with superpowers. Really, they get to vote however they please on convention day, how else could you describe it?
Okay, so no action on the superheroes front this week. But Obama’s been labeled as one before, so that’s gotta count for something.
Super, coming soon to a William Safire column near you.
