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Voters, Look! Up In The Sky: It's Super Egos!

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By STEVE OTTO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 17, 2008

"Faster than a candidate's mouth,

More powerful than a Kennedy endorsement,

Able to leap real facts in a single bound,

Look, there in the smoke-filled back room -

It's a nerd, it's hard to explain ... it's SUPERDELEGATE!

"Yes, it's Superdelegate, strange delegate from another planet, who came to Florida with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal delegates."

Yeah, we all remember that great show, don't we? Every week there was Superdelegate, wearing a cape and the colors of the day that would change along with the political tides. Superdelegate, disguised as just an average voter, always came through in the end, even if he was threatened with the only thing that made him weak - the promise of a favor or a good job down the line.

Now it turns out that Superdelegate was not just a fictional TV character, but one more member in that bizarre cast that is the road to the White House.

We have Superdelegates here in Florida, which may seem odd because the last time I read the paper we weren't going to have any delegates at all. Well, that's not quite true. Nobody is going to pass up a party and you can bet Florida's Democratic delegates are making plans to go to Denver, even if they have to stay at the hotel watching "Deal Or No Deal" on TV at night.

Not only that, they have been seen flying all across Florida and in other parts of the country. You can recognize them as they swoop down out of the sky with both hands stretched out as if they want something.

I'm not even going to try to explain what a superdelegate is, except to say they are to the democratic process what steroids are to professional sport. A superdelegate is only one more hidden clause down in the fine print of the Byzantine process we go through to nominate and elect a president.

You probably don't need to pay much attention to them unless the Democratic race muddles along all the way to the convention in Denver and then to the Florida courts, where there could be a challenge to seat Florida's delegates. That's when the chad will fly.

Don't you wonder what Florida's superdelegates might be doing this Presidents Day weekend?

Most of us ordinary folks are probably celebrating the holiday by checking out the Presidents Day sales at the mall.

Because history still hasn't made it onto the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests, Presidents Day isn't that big a deal if you are a student - you would have to know who they are, or were.

If you are among the million or so Democrats who voted in the primary you may have noticed that your vote is sitting out there in limbo, waiting to ultimately get flushed down the political toilet.

And so as you celebrate this Presidents Day holiday, you can only remind yourself that it is very likely you will have no say in picking the Democratic candidate and a limited voice in the Republican primary, where you were also punished.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read more musings and to comment on Steve Otto's blog.

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