Mind Your Language | 17 May 2008

‘What’s so super about these superdelegates?’ asked my husband from the other room, while I was washing the Jersey Royals.

I do not intend trying to explain the American political system here. These delegates are not necessarily super at all. I wonder what connections superdelegates suggests in the American mind. If it suggests superman, the reference is likely to be the cartoon hero who first made his appearance in 1938, ‘champion of the oppressed, the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need’.