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Jewish World Review April 12, 2012/ 20 Nissan, 5772 It's over -- it's been over By Paul Greenberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The race for the Republican presidential nomination has been over for some time, and now Now this losing candidate can make his gala appearance at the
And last and not just least but odd man out, The good news is that now the real race can begin. The one to be decided in November. The prelims were formally concluded Tuesday with Mr. Santorum's announcement that he was "suspending" his campaign -- that is, giving it a decent, prepaid interment. And everybody can move on to the main event. The country has waited for this moment too long already. Let's get this show, the Big Show, on the road. And try to remember it's supposed to be fun, not just another endurance contest. And it will be. Even if that may take some grim-faced determination. Fun is too valuable, too essential, an ingredient of an American political campaign to let it be lost.
Great losers can be fun, too. One thinks of We are a fun-loving people, and if we ever stop being one, we'll stop being American. That's something else Europeans don't appreciate about America, which is another good reason to cultivate it.
Just when this year's Republican presidential race was concluded may be a subject of some debate and any number of post-mortems among political junkies. My nomination would be the moment You might have your own nomination for the tipping point. Not that most Americans, being much too sane to follow these matters in tiresome detail, may much care about just when this intramural contest was decided. We're a people who tend to look ahead to the future, not back to the past -- as instructive as that perspective might be.
Mr. Romney's undramatic victory, or rather inevitable emergence, is both his strength and weakness as a presidential candidate. Surely, no one can believe that anyone so devoid of flair could be a danger to the Republic, for he appears abnormally normal, but where is that indefinable quality, that x factor Americans look for in a president? Every great president may have his own unique version of that quality. It eludes definition, but you know it when you sense it -- whether in an FDR or even a
It is a rare quality, the promise of greatness, and there are some who despair of any candidate's showing it in our time. Our great presidents, like our best days, we may be tempted to believe, are behind us. It's a temptation that never tempted me. After every great president is gone, there are those who say there will never be another -- another Instead, the next great president will be his own unique man -- or woman. And there will be such a president. For, as Have faith.
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