Looks Like It’s Mitt

Image by getty images

Gal Beckerman January 11, 2012

So if there was one overwhelming message out of New Hampshire tonight — after watching the 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 5th runners up pathetically grasping to put a positive spin on their losses (Huntsman: “Third place is a ticket to ride!”) — it was that Mitt Romney is looking pretty inevitable.

You’ll hear that from everyone this evening. And I don’t really have anything new to add to this blindingly obvious reality.

That being said, it looks like South Carolina is set to play the role it has in primaries past — as the very last stand. Gingrich is going to continue his Sheldon Adelson-fueled attacks on Romney over his years at Bain Capital; Santorum will try to stick a fork in Perry and become the social conservative candidate going forward; Paul will continues collecting his delegates so that he can imprint his message on the party’s platform.

But from the vantage point of tonight, Romney looks set to keep rolling along. And from our narrowly parochial view of things here, that means one thing for the Jews: By Florida, your grandparents’ vote won’t really matter.

By the time Jews get to weigh in as a community — though, admittedly, that elderly, reflexively pro-Israel part of the community that is assumed to be mad at Obama — it looks like it will all be wrapped up for Mr. Inevitability.

Gal Beckerman was a staff writer and then the Forward’s opinion editor until 2014. He was previously an assistant editor at the Columbia Journalism Review where he wrote essays and media criticism. His book reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review and Bookforum. His first book, “When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry,” won the 2010 National Jewish Book Award and the 2012 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, as well as being named a best book of the year by The New Yorker and The Washington Post. Follow Gal on Twitter at @galbeckerman

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected].

A message from our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren

We're building on 127 years of independent journalism to help you develop deeper connections to what it means to be Jewish today.

With so much at stake for the Jewish people right now — war, rising antisemitism, a high-stakes U.S. presidential election — American Jews depend on the Forward's perspective, integrity and courage.

Become a member today and you'll directly support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief