True to its name, Super Tuesday rivaled the Super Bowl.
Youth voters flocked in unprecedented numbers to polling places. Fellow students filled their friends’ apartments and gathered round the warm glow of CNN to watch the results pour in.
My mom called me every five minutes to let me know when a percentage point from the California primary changed in the favor of her favorite politician.
Maybe the overflow of enthusiasm is due to the ongoing writer’s strike, which has now stretched into its third month.
America is hungry for some drama, plot twists and kooky characters.
It seems we have satisfied this desire with the presidential primaries, which have fostered a sudden interest in politics throughout the nation that one hopes will only continue to grow.
The weeks leading up to Super Tuesday were everything good television is made of.
The usually cool and collected Sen. Hillary Clinton teared up, voice-cracking, during a campaign event while speaking of her dedication to the country.
Not to be outdone, Michelle Obama, Sen. Barack Obama’s wife, upped the stakes of the race for Obama devotees by telling Vanity Fair this would be the only time her husband ran for president. “It’s now or never,” the magazine quoted her.
Most likely in a terrible panic after hearing this news, recording artist will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas fame created a music video that featured him and other stars singing along to one of Obama’s speeches.
Politics might have been entertaining before, but now it’s glamorous.
On the Republican side, it appeared everyone’s favorite underdog, Sen. John McCain, was losing both momentum and money, facing another defeat in the contest for his party’s presidential bid.
Rubbing salt in his wounds, Ann Coulter ““ perhaps the most offensively conservative talking head besides Rush Limbaugh ““ announced she would vote for Sen. Clinton if Sen. McCain received the Republican nomination.
I also hadn’t heard mention of Mike Huckabee in the media for several days, and was wondering if he had been written out of the story line only to later resurface as Mitt Romney’s evil twin.
So as we loyal viewers tuned in on Tuesday night, we found we had been characteristically duped.
Like a much-hyped season finale for any television series, the episode gave nothing away and ended with the disappointing “to be continued.”
Sure, Sen. McCain is now leading the Republican candidates; Coulter will soon start sporting “I (heart) Hillary” paraphernalia, and Huckabee is once again mentioned during news reports.
But that could easily change in a few days, and to top it off, the Democratic race is still neck-and-neck.
Super Tuesday’s results tell us little about what the future primaries have yet to determine and what all of us want to know: the actual nominees for the next presidential election.
Of course, we knew this would happen. Pundits have been saying for weeks the nominees most likely will not be determined until the very end.
But we still couldn’t resist buying into Super Tuesday’s suspense and all of its trappings, including gravity-defying primary maps on NBC and neon lights on Fox News.
Americans have finally discovered the ultimate in reality TV: politics.
Just like in many other network hits like American Idol, Survivor and Big Brother, the audience gets to gawk at strange people from a safe distance, keep track of strangers’ sex lives (Rudolph Giuliani has gone through how many wives?) and vote people off the island.
Except politics is a riskier game for the viewers.
The winner doesn’t just get a million dollars and a chance to appear on Good Morning America ““ he or she gets the entire U.S. Treasury and the opportunity to hit the big red button.
It isn’t enough to decide we really like Sanjaya’s or Romney’s hair. We have to think a little more deeply and shoulder a bit more pressure while casting our vote.
Though generally, this is the element that has turned people, particularly youth voters, off from politics.
But Super Tuesday gave us all an opportunity to realize how rewarding the hard work of following the story lines and reading up on the contestants really is.
Hopefully this new interest will continue to increase our ratings, er, voter participation.
What did your mom think of Super Tuesday? Tell Strickland at kstrickland@media.ucla.edu.