Primaries Build Presidential Character

Impassive, unflappable, a survivor -- these are now the key qualifications for winning a presidential nomination.

After seven months of grueling, vicious and unrelenting attacks, Mitt Romney remains the front runner. Romney shows no emotional scratches, despite the gaffes, personal attacks, and 20 torturous debates.

The Obama campaign wanted to end Romney's campaign in Michigan, once and for all; Romney's resilient and unflappable optimism unsettles the president's campaign team.

They wanted to embarrass him in his home state. So, on the day of the Michigan primary, the president, speaking to a UAW convention, blasted Romney's stand on the auto industry bailout. While the president was speaking, his party was flooding Michigan Democrat voters with robo-calls, encouraging them to vote for Rick Santorum.

It's also the reason Obama's campaign strategist, David Axelrod, for the last several months, devoted most of his political tweets lambasting Romney. Axelrod is obsessed with Romney. He knows Romney is a marathon campaigner, not a sprinter. The primary process has hardened Romney, and Axelrod can't forget that Romney won the governorship in the country's most liberal state.

The general election will be more brutal than the primaries, and this is good for the country.

Every debate, every issue, every controversy strengthens the country. It strengthens the democracy. The primary process creates a potential president. Contemporary primary battles demand inner fortitude, calm, and assurance, qualities needed to handle the most difficult job in the world.

The Obama-Clinton primary in 2008 forged a president. The Republican primaries in 2012 will also forge a president -- should Mitt Romney prove victorious in November.