Today is Super Tuesday, which we think is what Americans call Pancake Day.

Not really – every day is Pancake Day if you're American. In fact, Super Tuesday is when everyone decides which person they'd like to think about choosing as the candidate that might possibly end up being the President or something. And all of the candidates need all the help they can get.

Barack Obama knows this, which is why he got The Grateful Dead to reform in a show of support. So at least he's got the wizened old cheesy-toenailed hippy vote sewn up.

Nothing makes us want to be American more than the way they do their elections. The process isn't like it is here, where there's no big build-up and then everyone forgets to vote on election day because they're stuck on a particularly hard level of Guitar Hero and then spends the next five years grumbling about whoever won even though they're identical to whoever lost, oh no.

America loves elections so much that it spreads them out for years. Even though people have been banging on about the election for months on end, nobody even has the vaguest clue about who'll be running for president. But that changes today – it's Super Tuesday, when 24 states will be holding their primary elections and choosing who they want as a presidential candidate based on a complex algorithm centred around how red each candidate can make their faces go whenever they talk about immigration and who can do the best impression of Tony Soprano. 

Duking it out for the Republican spot is a man who looks uncomfortable around black people and some old bloke who for some reason we believe to only have one shin. But the Democrats have got to choose between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It's a close-run thing so far, but Barack Obama has a secret weapon up his sleeve that he's been dying to let loose because, frankly, it smells like stale urine.

That's right – The Grateful Dead have reformed just to say how much they like Obama. Well, not all of The Grateful Dead, obviously – but all of the members who haven't died or sold their toilet at auction or both. Reuters reports:

Saying Barack Obama embodies political hope absent since Robert Kennedy was slain 40 years ago, three surviving members of the Grateful Dead rock band reunited on Monday for the first time in four years to back the presidential candidate."Every few generations a guy like this comes along," drummer Mickey Hart told a news conference a day before California's primary, in which Obama, a senator from Illinois, faces New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. "It seems like desperate times and we're desperate people."

It's thought that The Grateful Dead only reformed for Barack Obama so long as he promises to use his presidency to implement compulsory beard legislation and a rule banning songs from ending until they've fallen into a pointless nine-minute freeform wank jam that everyone gets sick of the second it begins.

But will a bunch of old men who smell like patchouli oil and the inside of Snoop Dogg's car manage to secure Barack Obama a Super Tuesday victory? Well, politics can be a very complex business and… look, we don't know, OK? We're way out of depths here and we honestly don't have a clue about any of it. We don't even live in America for God's sake. We just thought it'd be funny to mock hippies for a bit. Sorry.

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Grateful Dead and Deadheads reunite for Obama – Reuters