Doug, I couldn’t be more disappointed.

I supported you when you ran four years ago, during your campaign this year and at our GOP state convention. I supported you during your floor fight for the endorsement, including the last ballot, when you lost to GOP endorsed candidate Jim Schultz.

Three times during the race I asked you if you would promise me, personally, that you would abide by the endorsement and not run in the primary if you lost it. You made that promise to me, Doug. Now you say you are running in the primary.

I listened to your announcement of your Primary run. At 1:45 on that video, you say, “We should not tolerate politicians who lie, and rig the game, to subvert the people’s will.”

You’re right. Then you lied to me, Doug. Personally.

You broke your word to me to honor the endorsement. I was on the floor during the whole struggle to gain you the endorsement. There was no rigging of the game. In fact, you hardly had a floor fight team at all – one of the reasons you lost. You and Jim Schultz attacked one another, but Jim Schultz did not lie. Again, I was there, I read the handouts you and the winner, Jim Schultz gave out, and you were both hitting hard.

But there was no lying. And even if there were – you did not put any conditions on your promise to me. None.

The only lie here is your lie to me, your broken promise to honor the endorsement. In my career – as an enlisted man, NCO and officer first in the Marines and then the Army – a man’s reputation meant more than personal standing. It meant – can I trust you with my life and the lives of my soldiers?

I hope I would never have followed a military leader who lied because I could not trust him with the lives of the soldiers entrusted to my care. Fortunately, I never had to make that choice.

I can’t trust a candidate with the office of Attorney General if you will lie to gain it.

My disappointment in you is profound. I can’t trust you, Doug. Start to repair that trust by forgetting your ego and keeping your word. Withdraw – and support the endorsed candidate.