Super Bowl Tuesday

It all comes down to this. A chance at immortality. Because history is written by the winners.

In cities across America, each week, they've been suiting up, going onto the field, and playing their hearts out. These would-be heroes have been putting it in the air and they've been pounding it into the ground. They've been marching it down the field and they've been knocking on the door. But this game is won in the trenches, and there can only be one champion.

Tonight, it will all be decided. The moment you've been waiting for. The best and the brightest, the strongest and the fastest, the meanest and the hungriest: they have trained hard and tonight they're going head to head in a dazzling show, surrounded by thralls of fans and millions of dollars of advertising. When the night is over and the game clock has run down, we'll look up at the scoreboard and know we have a new champion.

Of course I'm not talking about the entertaining, surprising, NFL championship game that played a few nights ago, but rather a game with far more elaborate and arcane rules even than American football: the electing of delegates for the United States presidency. We, the so-called electorate, seize on the excitement with the rabidity of sports fans. We cheer, we groan, we hope our team comes out ahead, and don't worry so much that we've reduced our government to the passionate whims of fandom.

By morning, the candidates will be decided, and we'll have our champions—though half the country has yet to vote.