Three clowns left

Marco Antonio Rubio has dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination following his humiliating defeat in Florida. In announcing his departure, Rubio said, "It is not God's plan that I be president in 2016 or maybe ever." None of earth’s many gods or goddesses responded to media requests for comment.

Rubio was once the darling of the Republican Party’s teabaggers, but they rejected him when he was part of the ill-fated attempt at immigration reform in 2013. For teabaggers, when it comes to racist attacks on Hispanic immigrants, legal or otherwise, nothing succeeds like excess, and in their eyes Rubio was no different than the most Liberal Democrat. Which probably just reinforces how delusional teabaggers truly are.

Rubio ran a terrible campaign—every bit as bad as Jeb! (just don’t say) Bush’s. Like Bush, Rubio was touted as a “mainstream Republican” candidate, and when Bush quit, Rubio became the Republican elites’ last best hope of stopping Donald Drumpf and the Canadian-born Rafael “Ted” Cruz. Things didn't work out that way [see: “Marco Rubio just quit the race. The establishment couldn't save him.” on Vox for more on that].

Rubio did some seriously weird—and stupid—shit, too. Seeing how well Drumpf did in the polls by being a bully, Rubio decided to do that, too. While his poll ratings did go up for awhile, he was really lousy at it, sinking so low that he talked about the size of Drumpf’s penis. Id’ say that was the low point of the Republican Circus, but there are so many things competing for that title, and many more sure to come, that it’s way too soon to declare that as THE low point.

However, the fact that Rubio was terrible at acting the bully is actually a GOOD thing! In this Season of Stupid, when Republican clowns candidates have been engaged in a never-ending race to the bottom, the fact that one of them couldn’t even fake being a bully means that Rubio does, in fact, have some character. That, and seeing how clearly hurt he was at his loss, almost made me feel sorry for him. Or, it would have if I didn’t know that he’s just as much a far-right religious extremist as both the Canadian-born Rafael “Ted” Cruz and Ohio’s Governor what’s his name (I’m being mean: I know his name is Kasich—wait, is it? I’d better double check that…).

The larger point here is that the Republican Circus this year has been filled with clowns, and Rubio was one, too. He just wasn’t as big a jerk as either Drumpf or Cruz, which is weak praise, indeed; it’s also the absolute best I could possibly offer.