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yeah, but he didn't run for re-election. And I don't recall whether the reason was that he thought he probably would lose - do you recall?
That reminds me of a story. I used to have a client, Russian expat, who imported steel from mills in Russia (he has since returned to Russia and we lost touch). I took him to lunch one day during the Russian presidential election campaign between Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Zhirinovsky (whom you may remember as a xenophobic, antisemitic, right-wing Russian nationalist). The polls for a while showed Yeltsin trailing badly, and I asked the client (Sasha) about it. Sasha stopped a second, looked at me with this very level look, and said "Eef Yeltsin iz having un elekshun, eet's becawz he vill vin. Odervize dere vood be no elekshun." And Sasha was right - Yeltsin won in an amazing comeback. That was a very very interesting piece of cultural education that I learned, about what having an election means in other parts of the world. Which should give us all some appreciation for how great this country is.
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