Republican U.S. presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney shakes hands with supporters at his "Super Tuesday" primary election night rally in Boston, March 6, 2012.BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS
Mitt Romney is right to have called on the other remaining candidates for the Republican presidential nomination to withdraw. By now, it's high time for the differences between Barack Obama and Mr. Romney to be adequately articulated. For the sake of the citizens of the United States, Mr. Romney should emerge from the noise of an often shrill nomination campaign and speak more fully about what he himself stands for.
A genuinely contested convention would be an exciting, dramatic spectacle – the first in 36 years. American commentators refer to such events pejoratively as "brokered conventions," in the belief that more than one ballot will inevitably involve backroom dealings among political bosses – surely a harsh judgment on convention delegates.
But Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have already had a good run; they have all eclipsed Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Richard Perry and Tim Pawlenty. Mr. Santorum and Mr. Paul have both had remarkable success in representing views usually believed to be well outside the mainstream. In his social conservatism, Mr. Santorum goes so far as to deplore contraception, which is very widely practised in North America. Mr. Paul's isolationism and economic libertarianism have attracted a dedicated following. And the virtuosity and idiosyncrasies of Mr. Gingrich have earned him two victories.
Mr. Romney was a moderate governor of Massachusetts but he has been a hard-line conservative in the nomination campaign. The people of the United States' best chance of finding out who and what he is will come if he is recognized as the presumed Republican nominee.