Super Tuesday

 No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

                                         - H. L. Mencken, 20th Century U.S. journalist and publisher

Today is what we call Super Tuesday in this country. It goes without saying that we have the most bizarre, convoluted system of electing our president of any democracy on the planet. Each state has its own process of selecting delegates to the parties' national conventions, done at different times and under different rules. The delegates select the candidates. The selection may be a foregone conclusion or there may be a free-for-all on the convention floor. The president is not elected simply by the popular vote. Each state appoints Electors, through a weird process better described here. It is possible to lose the popular vote and still win the presidency, as happened with George Bush against Al Gore in 2000.

As the comedian Yacov Smirnoff says, is this a great country or what?

So Super Tuesday is the day with by far the greatest number of state primary elections and caucuses. It has a big impact on the eventual nominee. It's just that the person who, at the moment, has the best chance of winning the Republican nomination, is an egotistical, unqualified, blow-hard buffoon who opposes most of the parties policies. And he doesn't raise many donations or advertise all that much. Dirt cheap populism by a billionaire.

(By the way, Dirt Cheap is a local chain of discount tobacco and alcoholic beverage stores. Its advertising theme is a person who runs around in a chicken costume shrieking "Cheap! Cheap! Fun! Fun!")