TWENTY-EIGHT MINUTES after noon, Gerald Ford conceded victory to Jimmy Carter, formally ending an election campaign that began what now seems eons ago. It could not have been much closer, and that is bound to add tears to the losers' agony and prayers of thankfulness to the exhausted victors' ecstasy. Conversation will turn from the candidates' merits and flaws to what might have happened in Ohio, or in any other state for that matter, for it was so close.

There is something tragic in the fate of a lifetime's dreams hanging so heavily on the simplest of margins. For the thousands of candidates who sweated blood for months, and years, and especially for the men who sought the presidency in this election year, the mysterious, often incomprehensible process on election day has passed final judgment. Despite the talk of packaged candidates, enormous egos and the surreal stellar auroras that surround modern candidates and campaigns, it is the ultimate importance of that single day balanced against vast amounts of time, money and effort that condemns the Fords and Carters and those who surround them to their special unreality.

How can anyone comprehend what Gerald Ford must have experienced when he dictated his message of defeat? After a year of campaigning, of speaking before a handful of dirt farmers in some rural backwater, or before a throng of urban humanity screaming his name, and hearing their response, not from their mouths but from the computer printouts of a hundred opinion surveys, after the exhilaration of a heartfelt speech, warmly received, and the magnified shame of a few mistaken words, after the victories of the primaries and the defeat on November 2, Gerald Ford is finally left in solitude to remember each day and relive it again, and wonder what went wrong.

And Jimmy Carter must have found his moment of solitude by now. It will not be filled with regrets or fantasies of what might have been, and his tears, the tears of relief and disbelief and gratitude will have dried. His thoughts must be on the future, and his conscience must be preoccupied with the awful, beautiful knowledge that from this moment hence, his every step will be the stuff of future history. All of these things may be surmised, and yet an outsider's comprehension must still be far from complete.

Across the country thousands of campaign workers, aides and advisers and a multitude of others who have in varying degrees tied a part of their lives to the fortunes of their men will be experiencing the thoughts and emotions of the candidates, but their reactions will be of a distilled variety. Many of the losers will walk about in gloom for a time, but the future is sure to bring other men and women in need of a helping hand and a few extra votes. And after all, much of the indescribable attractiveness of giving for a cause is in the giving itself. For those whose livelihoods are built around candidates and campaigns, the attraction is instinctive, and awaits only the next stimulus, the next election.

The victors will gleefully set about tying together loose ends, looking ahead to more work of an official sort, or savoring the simple satisfaction of a job well done. And it is likely that the sum of individual estimations of importance will exceed the whole. There are those who shunned the limelight and gave advice and who will now wait patiently to receive the call in January for the high honor of public service. Others wrote the speeches and heard them delivered countless times, experiencing countless vicarious pleasures with each repeated utterance. Still others commanded the organizations in each important state, directed the battle in the trenches from afar, and counted each vote as extension and product and reward of effort. All of these people and more divide and lay claim to the myriad parts of success that form the next President.

The reporters will be sleeping soundly by now, perhaps for the first time in months. For those who traveled with the candidates, from backwaters to crammed auditoriums, from airplanes to buses to a hundred motel rooms of varying size and comfort, the sleep must indeed be deep and dreamless. Now comes the longed-for respite from compulsive transcribing and typing and searching for something of interest in the inevitable sameness of a campaign that never should have lasted so long. Through a television camera or a newspaper's front page, that long line of reporters peered into the unreal world of the candidates and lived to tell what they saw.

Orbiting about their two centers of gravity, the reporters assumed positions of lesser constellations, but with some star shine of their own and a great deal of reflected light. Election day plucked them from their brilliant night sky, returning them once again to the earth they left many months ago, to walk among the lesser mortals who had appeared before as just a blurry mass below. Perhaps when they wake from their well-deserved rest, some will pause for a moment to contemplate the election results (they, too, must have cared who won) and reflect upon their part in the outcome. The role they played was important, for their presentation of the news largely determined what the voters would see of the candidates. It is likely the candidates will think of the reporters while they sleep, and if thoughts were deeds, some would not awake.

The voters will have returned to the real world by now, after their brief moment in the polling place. Although many may not realize it, it was for them that great forces moved in the campaign. The candidates, the workers, the staff, the reporters--all devoted themselves in an insane ordeal spanning months for the sake of fifteen minutes of time in a curtained booth. After the intensity of commitment to that ordeal by the candidates and their followers, perhaps the voters should have suspected, more than they did, that something important was at stake.

No other country on earth endures as long or as complex a selection process for its chief executive as the United States. Although it is questionable whether the extended exposure time actually provides a sum of information commensurate with the effort devoted, presidential campaigns nevertheless drag on for nearly a year. The incumbent inevitably tailors his policies to the ill-defined desires of assorted voting "blocs" in the hope of cueing the correct response, often dramatically altering government policy in the process. President Ford has been no exception. Both candidates are challenged to please as many voters as possible, to cater to a completely heterogeneous assortment of values and beliefs while appearing consistent and self-controlled. After months of this they inevitably blunder and reel from the reaction.

As the months pass by, the reporters tire of campaign's sameness, and seek the unusual. They pounce on blunders, magnify the trivial and sometimes distort as much as they clarify. For this they may be understood but not wholly forgiven. This election year has witnessed press criticism of a campaign alternatively termed petty, banal and issueless; the irony is that the objects of criticism were often of the media's own creation.

As the campaigns become more extended and intensive, the voters' interest is bound to ebb. The disinterest is fueled by the cynicism and often hypocritical criticism of the press. After months of being treated as lifeless embodiments of electoral power (which may be unavoidable given the length and scope of the campaign), many voters begin to respond similarly. They cease to react or to care. It is a tribute to the voters' faith and endurance that so many of them did vote.

ALTHOUGH THE PRESIDENTIAL campaign is too long and demanding, it is unlikely to change. The Presidential race will remain a process that continues, beyond the control of any of the participants, and yet reaching its periodical culmination in a choice of great importance. One such choice has just been made, and what is needed in its aftermath is a little sympathy--for Gerald Ford, who spent two years of his life in the White House on a fluke of history, nearly earned the right to remain there, and now will return to Grand Rapids, where he should have been all along; for Jimmy Carter, who spent two years of his life trying to reach the White House, who has finally fulfilled one promise, and who will have many more to keep; for the campaign staffs and assorted workers, who succeeded and failed, and for whom there will always be another campaign; for the reporters, who have returned from the sky for a few more years, and who should spend more time in contemplation during the next journey; and for the voters, who, after all, are responsible for all of the above.