Dear John McCain,

Well played, sir, well played. I really enjoyed watching your speech last night. It was eloquent and respectful. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the campaign. To kind of debrief where it might have gone wrong... Many will say it was the Palin choice, but I think she is just a symptom of a bigger strategy problem.

You see, you were an ideal candidate at one point... A true independent Maverick who stood proud on his own, never buying into the hype of either party and just acting in what you believed to be the best interest of the American people. It would have seemed that with that history you could have attracted and earned the votes of the many independent Americans out there... that should have been the case.

I have NO idea how you managed to win the Republican Primary. Maybe it was because there were too many other good candidates and the party votes were split between them leaving you to rise to the top? It seemed so unlikely, but you got it anyway. And that, my friend, is where it went wrong. Once you had the nomination, you had the conservative base. There is no way in hell any of them would have voted for Barack OR Hillary. Republicans historically, fall in line... you had them at hello.

Instead of recognizing that and playing to the middle (like so many successful candidates have done in the past) you spent much of your campaign trying to secure the conservative base of the republican party and in doing so, neglected the people who could have elected you. Conservative people are out there and they have a lot of money and a loud voice, but as you learned last night, they are not mighty in numbers, at least not in the places where it counts.

I'm afraid you sold yourself out trying to win a base that would have been yours by default and in doing so you lost the support of the people who were most likely to support you. I'm sorry that it happened that way, you could have even had my husband's vote... if you'd played your cards right.

Again, I enjoyed your speech last night. I am touched by your declaration of cooperation, I hope your constituents will do so as sincerely as you asked them to. I am saddened by the "boo"s I heard when you mentioned Obama in contrast to the cheers I heard when he mentioned you, but I am so proud of you for denouncing them. I hope you will be better able to influence your supporters to support the President Elect than you were able to draw them to the polls; I fear you won't. I wish you all the best and thank you for a great election year; it's been a blast.

Much love,
Kate M.