New York, June 6—The primaries are for all intents and purposes over, though there is no law against Senator Kennedy’s continuing to run for President of the United States or for Emperor of Siam, come to think of it. This is the moment when many editorial writers feel the compulsion to deplore the process that has left the Republic with choices so unappetizing, and—to be sure—there is the record of an apathetic public that declined to participate in the primaries or, having done so, voted for None of the Above.
But the question is badly framed. The premise of democracy is that democracy’s leaders will appeal to the people at large. In order to do this, a leader needs to combine an assortment of qualifications not easily described by any handy paradigm. Nor is it sensible to say that those who pass this test are annealed by it to greatness. To win the vote of the majority by no means proves that you are the better man judged by conventional standards of greatness. It means nothing more than that the people are more comfortable with you than with the other man, at this particular moment. What one should ponder at this moment in history is why the people have selected Carter, and Reagan.
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