Over e-mail, Coolican added an important note: “in some respects political science grounding has more to do with what you don’t write than what you write”; a poli-sci primer is like an injunction against “nonsense momentum stories and such.” That takes us back to the key point: for readers and reporters alike, elections are important, and elections are entertaining, but at least in most cases, they’re pretty straightforward, and can be explained with a fraction of the words we devote to them. Meanwhile, there’s a whole fascinating, compelling, consequential world of political activity out there waiting to be covered. So by all means, let’s have fun with Super Duper Tuesday. Then let’s get on to the hard stuff.

Greg Marx is a CJR staff writer. Follow him on Twitter @gregamarx.