“It ought to be this insane because it’s so important,” is how MSNBC pundit and traditional cool voice of reason Rachel Maddow put it on Monday’s Tonight Show. And while the dogged Maddow is nobody to disregard when it comes to politics, one might wonder if—facing as America is the self-dealing rampage of a former reality show steak salesman and white supremacist over everything the nation is supposed to stand for—maybe a more orderly, unified march to unseat Donald Trump from the Oval Office would be a little more reassuring. Well, that’s not Maddow’s gig, to be fair, and, while she wasn’t exactly serene in talking about the frenzied walkup to today’s Super Tuesday, 14-state throwdown among the remaining Democratic candidates, she maintained the even keel of someone who’s seen raucous political seasons come and go.
Explaining things to Jimmy Fallon as if he were, well, Jimmy Fallon, Maddow spoke to the ongoing fractiousness in the Democratic field and did agree that, yeah, as Fallon put it, this is the “wildest thing [she’s] ever seen.” Busting out some fun facts to back her claim, Maddow explained the real scope of Joe Biden’s South Carolina, 50-percent-of-voters win in a then-crowded field—and that it’s the first state the Biden has ever won in his decades of running for president. She also reminded people that Mike Bloomberg—who’s spent a half-billion dollars to buy his way into the race late in the game—will only be appearing on actual ballots for the first time on Tuesday, when fully one-third of all delegates will be decided.
Speaking of delegates, Maddow told Fallon that it’s more than likely that no candidate will have the necessary number heading into the Democratic convention in July, which serve as a warning for host city Milwaukee to batten down the hatches. Then there’s the fact that, according to Maddow, “millions” of people have already voted early in today’s primaries for candidates who are no longer in the race, muddying things up even further. (And, since every damn jurisdiction in the country has its own rules about whether or not such early voters can re-cast, good luck with that.) Oh, and back to Bloomberg for a second, Maddow ran down the former New York mayor’s pledge to keep his heaps of cash in the race to support the eventual nominee, even if it’s not him—but that current front-runner Bernie Sanders has pledged not to take a penny of the billionaire plutocrat’s many, many pennies. “It’s bananas,” Maddow finally agreed, although, again, she offered up the faint assurance that, you know, democracy.
So, find out your voting place, registration status, and get to the polls today, people. It might be a mess, but it’s our mess, and we’ve got to vote our way out of it.