All Animals Are Created Equal

the country is caught up in primary fever. for whatever reason - iraq, the economy stupid or maybe just bad reality tv - people are ready for a change. and so, in record numbers, people have registered and actually go out to vote. i am not sure what record numbers really means, since the united states has a reputation for low voter turnout. it doesn't help much that if you have been convicted of a felony you can go to jail, serve your time and yet eternally lose the right to vote.

but i digress - as i have been known to do. but so we are going through the primary elections - someone wins here, someone else wins there and yet the tallies don't agree with the wins and then, just to make things even more confusing, the numbers are different depending on which news source you go to. but then people stopped and said, hey! what's going on? how can it be so complicated? don't the people go and vote and elect their representative?

turns, out, no, not really. it turns out that we the people, all created equal, go out and vote for the candidate we like or at least prefer over the others. but it doesn't end there. there are those who have been created more equal. they get an extra vote and their vote is worth a lot of votes. how more equal? well, we the people count for 80% of the vote. 796 super-people count for 20% of the vote. what does that mean? well in a nation of about 300 million people, let's say that a third are democrats - 100 million. of these maybe half are eligible to vote, that's 50 million. and half turn up to vote - we are now at 25 million. 25 million vs 796? that's a heck of a lot of more equal, in anyone's book.

what really kicks is that people are sitting around debating how superdelegates can be part of a democratic process and there are people that sit and talk and blow a WHOLE LOT OF HOT AIR and somehow thinks this makes sense. they throw out phrases like - dedication to the party, party activists, those loyal to the party. and i am not sure what that is supposed to mean. is there a test, to determine more-equality? why didn't i get the memo?

superdelegates in the democratic party as part of the democratic process. yes. no irony at all in that phrase.