Rhode Island Is Important. Really

I reside in Massachusetts, but I am not a Massachusetts resident. Weird, I know. I have an apartment in Massachusetts. I earn money in Massachusetts. But since moving to Boston eight years ago, I’ve never officially moved to the Bay State.

Technically speaking, I am a Rhode Islander. And during this contentious primary season, I couldn’t be happier that I’m too lazy to legally change my residency.

You Bay Staters thought you were so clever to move your primary up to Super Tuesday. Finally, your votes would really count.

But it didn’t matter, did it? Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are still basically tied. The Republicans gave Mitt Romney a win, when a loss would have ended his campaign and allowed him to stop embarrassing himself.

The voters of the State of Rhode Island are really going to count. Now that nothing is resolved, the nation looks forward. If the deadlock continues through the Potomac Primary on February 19, all eyes will be on Little Rhody on March 4.

Even the experts agree.

“Vermont and Rhode Island will be in play that day,” says Garrison Nelson, a University of Vermont political science professor.

“Voters in both states will see the candidates; it might just be a flyby and an airport rally, but they will visit,” says Nelson.

So congratulations on your front-row seat to the Super Tuesday media circus. Hope you enjoyed those rallies and campaign commericals. Now the action shifts to the state with the most coveted 32 delegates in the United States. And, yes, I’ve got my absentee ballot.