MY EARLIER POST ASKING WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH THE EVAN MCMULLIN CANDIDACY PRODUCED A LOT OF DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENTS, and this email from Jim Bennett:

He’s a stalking horse for Romney. The scenario would be, McMullin takes Utah, and maybe Idaho. Then, before Dec. 15, he publicly instructs his electors to vote for Romney. Some other GOP electors may follow suit, since they are nominated by the state parties, not the Trump campaign.

Then, assuming a lack of Electoral College majority, the House chooses among Hillary, Trump, and Romney. Romney’s 2012 vote total may well be larger than either Hillary’s or Trump’s 2016 vote, which has no legal meaning but shows that he’s not an absurd choice. Plus he was right abut Russia, etc. Whereas if Romney ran openly, people would only look at his 2016 vote which would be minuscule, And he wouldn’t want to put his family through a campaign being trashed by both the Hillary andTrump machines. This way he gets to be the white knight.

I expect a whispering campaign letting folks in Utah know this is the scenario might be going on soon.

The biggest flaw is the requirement that Hillary not get an outright Electoral College majority.

Yeah, it’s going to take more than one state to ensure that, probably.