Lost somewhere between leadership and political posturing is where you’ll find Ronnie Musgrove.

In case you’ve been under a rock for the last week, Musgrove, a Democrat, barely eked out a lead over his Republican challenger, Mike Parker, in the governor’s race. But despite gaining more votes than Parker, Musgrove hasn’t won the election – at least not yet.

Since two other candidates gained a small segment of votes, neither Parker nor Musgrove garnered the majority of votes. State law requires that gubernatorial candidates attain the majority, or 50 percent plus one vote, and the majority of electoral votes, which equates to which candidate carried the most state congressional districts.

The almost dead-heat made history. It was the first time it’s ever happened. But, like it or not, the authors of our state constitution made plans for just such occurrence.

In such cases the decision goes to the Legislature which convenes in January.

Like both candidates and the thousands of campaign supporters on both sides of the fence, we don’t like the wait. But what we like even less is Musgrove’s reaction.

The former lieutenant governor decided to choose posturing over leadership and headed across the state claiming victory this week.

Now, if he ultimately does gain the office of governor, our first memory of his term will be one of him claiming something that is not yet his, all for the sake of gaining the perception of being the winner.

Given such extreme circumstances, we hoped Musgrove would have done the right thing and simply waited to see the outcome instead of running around showing little regard for the laws of our state. We hope that if Musgrove ends up gaining the majority of the electoral votes that Parker will be a gentleman and bow out of the race to avoid hampering the state government any longer.

What our state needs is leadership not political posturing.