Eric's Beijing Diary

The past couple years I have watched the Super Bowl at the Goose and Duck Pub. This year Pyro Pizza in Wudaokou hosted a Super Bowl party, and the new Goose and Duck Pub is way over on the east side of Chaoyang Park, so I decided to take the easy way out.

As I was riding my bike to the game early this morning, I was contemplating the irony of the Super Bowl a couple days before Super Tuesday, and the growing predictability of American culture. Primary contests, which used to be decided sometimes after several ballots at the convention, are now pretty much over by Super Tuesday. And Super Bowl games are over by halftime.

Well, this one turned out a little different than I expected. I had brought something along to read in case I got bored, but it turned out I didn't need it. The game was a little slow at the beginning, but I was busy getting acquainted. When I first sat down, I asked if anyone thought the Patriots could lose. The guy sitting next to me said he thought they could. He was from England, but he had spent about three months in Ohio. "I liked football before, but after three months in America, I understood it." Smart guy, it took me a whole lot longer than that.

I won't bore you with the play by play, because if you didn't watch the game, then you probably aren't interested anyway. But I do have to admit that this Super Bowl proved there is a big difference between football and politics. In the years since I have been voting, the primary system has been continually revised to make the decision earlier and earlier. The current system is set up to almost guarantee an early winner to the contest, and the conventions are basically irrelevant. More and more delegates are chosen by primary election now, and delegates are generally bound for the first two ballots at the convention. But because primaries are happening earlier and earlier, most of the time there is one candidate who has enough committed delegates to put him over the top before the convention even starts, so the first ballot is a formality and the convention is really irrelevant. With football, at least you would have to say that the system is set up to pit the two best teams against each other, so it can still go down to the wire. Good game. Won on skill, not on technicalities.

Getting back to politics, there is one key difference between the Democratic and Republican primaries that could prolong the Democratic contest. In most states, Republican primary contests are "winner takes all," while the Democratic delegates are assigned proportionately. Not sure how much difference that will make, but wouldn't it be something if the contest went all the way to the convention? What can I say? History happens.