Well, that’s that. Mitt Romney has apparently suspended his efforts to recruit a third party candidate to run against Trump and Clinton, and has indicated that he will not run himself. Moreover, Tom Coburn has unequivocally stated that he will not run, and Coburn was probably the most likely choice to actually attract a significant following.

Actually, I’m not all that dismayed by this news. I think having an attractive third party option on the ballot would have helped ease a lot of people’s consciences and provided an escape valve from people who want to be freed of the burden of making a choice. For those people, they can still vote libertarian or just not vote, so nothing has really changed. But I think the vast majority of people really should have to take a long look in the mirror and decide between the two.

I think they should watch this campaign unfold and seriously ask themselves if they feel okay with the Giant Human Cheeto controlling the United States military and all its attendant firepower. And they should have to feel the agony of knowing that these two clowns are America’s only two viable choices because they won pluralities of their respective party’s votes, and they should have to ruminate on what brought this situation to pass – and then they should think long and hard about what they need to do in order to prevent that from ever happening again.