Romney suspends his campaign

To all intents and purposes, Governor Romney has ended his campaign. He did so with what may have been the best speech of his entire campaign.

Thinking back, I recall Al Gore's concession speech, when he finally got around to conceding that he did lose Florida, after all. It was a very good speech. I remember thinking that if that version of Al Gore had shown up at the debates, he'd have won the election. (It wouldn't have taken that much of a shift, after all.)

Maybe candidates for office should, as a rule, write out their concession speeches at the very start and give it early in the campaign (without the parts where they concede, of course). Maybe candidates are at their best -- most focused on the principles for which they're campaigning, most human, best able to connect to the listeners, and so on, when they have given up the daily battles that are a political campaign. Maybe in their concession speeches, candidates are finally speaking for the ages. And maybe that's what they should have been doing all along.