An e-mail:

Please help me understand how one can vote for McCain after he treated Romney with such total disdain — even lying about his “timetable” for surrender. I just do not know how that can be so easily set aside as mere politics. I’m not a novice or “newby” to politics. I have a PhD, with a political science BA and many years of active service in the Republican Party — but this is one primary season I just do not think I can get over. My disposition right now is to vote third party. (I have the added misfortune of being a believing Mormon who is very conservative who feels denigrated and disenfranchised by many of the so-called “Christian Right.”)

And another reader offers an alternative phrase to “suicide voter,” that seems appropriate, whatever you think of the strategy:

My wife and I both have decided to become “maverick” voters. We’re voting Republican for House and Senate but abstaining from voting for President.