Season 4 of the political thriller House of Cards goes live on Netflix this week. I love that show. Like probably too much. When Season 3 dropped I cleared my schedule, drove out to my friend’s place in Jersey and binge-watched the whole season start to finish in one sitting. Despite my love for the show, I have no clue when, or even if, I’ll watch Season 4. Part of it is now that I am employed I am less able to drop everything at 10am on a Thursday to unbutton my shirt, order pizza and watch 13+ hours of TV in a given day.
But a way bigger reason is that this show can’t compete with reality of this intense election. I mean if a Supreme Court justice dies in HOC while a 70+ year old socialist and former reality TV star win the New Hampshire primaries it would feel contrived and absurd.
This fascinating election is kind making people go a little crazy, and I just can’t imagine any fiction matching our current reality. A presidential candidate is mocking a rival for having small hands and possibly wetting his pants at a debate. An up and coming congressperson just left a DNC leadership position to endorse a candidate that doesn’t even consider himself a Democrat. People are paying a ton of attention to an endorsement from a KKK leader. Big time liberal and former editor of The New Republic Peter Beinart is urging other liberals to vote for a Republican. A loud talking Governor has completely flip flopped his public statements (actually that might not be too rare). And both delegate leaders might be indicted before a January inauguration.
Honestly there is just no way House of Cards can match this actual race. But who knows, today is Super Tuesday and maybe the race will calm down and move out of the entertainment section.
What makes Super Tuesday so super? Well almost a quarter of all delegates are up for grabs tomorrow (21% of Democratic delegates & 24% of Republican delegates) because a whopping 12 states are holding elections tomorrow!
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia all are holding their Democratic and Republican primaries tomorrow. Minnesota is holding their Democratic and Republican Caucuses, Alaska is holding a Republican Caucus, and Colorado is holding their Democratic Caucus. Lastly Democrats in American Samoa are caucusing and Democrats abroad are casting votes as well.
Currently Hillary Clinton has 90 pledged delegates to Bernie Sanders’ 65 (2,383 needed to win nomination). While Donald Trump has 81 delegates, both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have 17 delegates, John Kasich has 6 delegates, and Ben Carson has 4 delegates (1,237 needed to win nomination). There are 865 Democratic delegates up for grabs and 595 GOP delegates. As these numbers illustrate, tomorrow is a big deal in the nominating process.
At the moment these half dozen statistical models compiled by Bloomberg Politics point to resounding victories tomorrow for Trump and Clinton, victories that would give them the inside track to a nomination. Yes, theoretically Marco Rubio can lose every state tomorrow and still win the GOP nomination. And theoretically I could eat McDonalds every day for 6 months and lose weight. I doubt either of those two scenarios will play out in reality. Also Sanders fans don’t need to fret too much, here is one analysis from NPR that predicts a scenario where Sanders compiles more delegates than Clinton and can keep this a tight race through the spring.
So for this Super Tuesday I've cleared my schedule, ordered pizza, ironed my bathrobe, and have reservations to spend 12 straight hours on my couch. I just hope Netflix renews the presidential race for 2020 even if this season kind of feels like it jumped the shark.