Putin (Surprise!) Leads in Russian Election

It was closer than the oligarchs might have liked, but Vladimir Putin looks ready to take the "acting" part of his title and take over as the next president of Russia. With more than 80 percent of the vote counted, the tally shows Putin with 51.5 percent. A distant number two is the 1996 also-ran, Communist Gennady Zyuganov. The race was surprisingly close, considering polls showed Putin with 50 percent of the vote last week, and considering he was virtually the official candidate of the Russian government. Putin's support was soft in the Russian Far East, where Communists such as Zyuganov have done well in the past, and in Moscow, where Zyuganov and liberal Grigory Yavlinsky got nearly 40 percent between them.

While the win was expected, the real questions — just who is this guy, anyway, and what are his plans for Russia — remain unanswered. Putin ran the campaign that George W. Bush could only dream about, saying little and revealing even less about how he will govern, which has allowed the West to confidently label him a reformer (and politely ignore that whole Chechnya thing) while at the same time let Russians believe he's there to impose order and restore the Russian state. Both views could be right; now, of course, we get to see if they are.