Dear Mr. McMullin,

I’m writing to tell you how much I regret my part in making you someone who sucks up to Shaun King.

When I voted for you, I was desperate. I didn’t trust Trump to be any good, and I didn’t think Hillary could be any worse.

I was on the rebound from losing the primary. My original choice had a heart-breaking finish, but I would have chosen even Jeb Bush over you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that.

I turned to you as a protest vote. I heard you in an interview, and you seemed clear-eyed and down-to-earth about your chances. My vote was meant to tell the rest of the country, “Go ahead. You pick,” and they did.

I didn’t know you thought Republicans were racist. My fault. I read a lot of news, but much of it happens outside my radar. But here you are in October, telling Byron York that there’s nothing wrong with the GOP except racism. If I had known you thought I and other Republicans were racist, I would have gone back to my earlier write-in pick, Ted Cruz, although I briefly thought about voting for The Dread Pirate Roberts, but I wasn’t quite ready to deal with the first Fictional-American president (is that racism?).

I apologize, Mr. McMullin, that I helped give you the idea that you are Somebody.

You apparently got fewer than 500,000 votes in the election. More than I got, but it does not make you a player on the national stage.

I know. It hurts to put yourself out there like that: the headlines, the interviews, the hoopla, the begging for donations, and the money! I’m sorry you thought we really, really liked you. In that interview I heard, you seemed to understand that your “path to victory” was probably, at best, a 250-to-1 shot (which by my not-so-stellar-math is what it turned out to be). You spent a lot of money. You made yourself a name.

And now — Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! — Donald Trump won. And made some surprisingly good nomination picks. And continued being Trump. And sent the Left into paroxysms of the Derangement Syndrome du Jour. He will make good moves and bad moves, like all presidents. History’s train is trundling down the tracks, and we’ll see where we go. But in case you haven’t noticed, you’re not driving.

In the future, when I ask where conservatism is going, I won’t look to you. I’m just not that into you. I’m sorry I led you on. I thought you understood that you were an emergency vote. A protest vote. Not a lasting political relationship.

Don’t go away mad. Let me give you a trophy.

And of bit of advice: It’s not too late to go into politics, if that’s your passion. But start over, with a school board or something. And don’t hang out with fakes like Shaun King. It makes you look like a loser.

Your former voter,

Jan Bear