8 June 2016
LOS ANGELES — “They said it could never be done,” roared Marco Rubio to his jubilant supporters, “but we proved them wrong!” The scene at the Florida senator’s watch party for the last night of the 2016 primary season was pandemonium. Over the din, campaign manager Terry Sullivan shouted to your correspondent, “The pundits mocked our 3-5-2-2-3-2-3-3-2-3-3-2-2-3-4-3-2-2-3-3-3-2-3-3-2-3-3-2-2-3-2-3-2-2-3-2-3-2-3-3-3-2-2-3-3-2-2-2-2-3 strategy, but look at where we are!” Indeed, with his third-place finishes in Montana and South Dakota and runner-up triumphs in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, and North Dakota, Sen. Rubio is poised to lead the Republican Party back into the White House. While real estate mogul Donald Trump technically maintains a majority of the delegates to the Republican National Convention—1,432, with Sens. Cruz and Rubio lagging behind at 612 and 393, respectively—Sen. Rubio continued to give his unprecedented forty-ninth victory oration. His modesty at refusing to deliver one after falling to fifth place in New Hampshire was well-received by the establishment press; though naysayers argued that similar restraint should have accompanied his fourth-place finish in Massachusetts, Sullivan cited his razor-thin loss to Mr. Trump in the American Samoa caucuses on the same day as cause for the senator’s triumphant oration. It is expected that Sen. Rubio’s third-place showing among the delegates in Cleveland will catapult him to strong second-place finish against Hillary Clinton in November.
*satire