Although the late returns are still coming in, I think it’s time to face reality and acknowledge that my opponents have won, and I have lost. There is no shame in losing — except, of course, the shame of losing. But I’m here to tell you that this campaign is about more than winning and losing.

I am comforted by the knowledge that my candidacy provided a lively platform from which to seriously address the pressing issues of the day — issues like, “Who is Kurt Luchs, that the gods should torment him so with low standing in the polls?” Now that my hopes have ended in defeat, it is time to let go of the struggle and simply wish in my heart of hearts that, as it must to all men, death will come to my opponents — a lingering and horribly painful death involving buboes and carbuncles swelling in the groin and armpits. I take comfort in knowing that, while my opponents received 60 percent of the votes cast by independents, I received 100 percent of the votes cast by Kurt Luchs.

There were so many meaningful moments in this campaign, moments I will always treasure. At one rally, a thoughtful voter asked me, “If you could press a button and make your opponents disappear, would you do so?” I didn’t like the question, so I pressed a button and my security detail made the man who asked it disappear. On another occasion a hostile reporter asked me if my years of struggle in posh private schools and the halls of privilege had turned me unhealthily inward and made me a solipsist. After looking it up, I can assure each and every one of my imaginary friends that I am not a solipsist. The correct term, I believe, is megalomaniac. And I think it will be a long time before anyone forgets my “I Have a Recurring Dream About Halle Berry and Kate Hudson” speech.

My opponents and I disagree on many issues such as bestiality, Satan worship, and cannibalizing the newborn, but we all agree on the general direction for this country. Other than my continuing activism in the causes I believe in — like a system to carry mail for all Americans — I have no immediate plans personally except to retreat to a quiet place of reflection where I can torture my family in privacy and begin my long, agonizing slide into embittered alcoholism. As the Pretty Woman says, I want the whole fairy tale.

Let me promise you this, my friends: Though I have lost the election, and public interest in my opinions has dwindled to absolute zero, I will continue to snipe from the sidelines, to nip at the heels of my onetime opponents like a rabid schnauzer and to denounce them on Fox News whenever the guards once more permit me in the studio. In short, though I have dropped any pretence of seeking to become a public servant, I will continue to be a public nuisance until my sniveling, miserable opponents give up out of sheer fatigue.

Thank you.