CHAPIN, SOUTH CAROLINA—Long ago, I read an interview with the late New Orleans piano titan Professor Longhair. He casually mentioned that he'd served in World War II. The interviewer was surprised. This tidbit never had been mentioned in any piece ever written about 'Fess. So, the interviewer asked, where did you serve?

I served behind enemy lines, 'Fess told him.

But where, the interviewer insisted.

Shreveport, 'Fess replied.

So, anyway, I'm in South Carolina.

Specifically, I'm here, on the banks of Lake Murray, in a funky little town where, if you're particularly alert, you might see a camel standing stolidly in a field, surrounded on all sides by sheep. Not far from the camel, there's an empty warehouse and the sign out front says that it's AVAILABLE in giant white letters. This unremarkable place may well be the spot at which the involvement of the Bush family in our politics comes to an unremarkable end. Right around noon on Wednesday, word came down that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley would come to this empty warehouse in Chapin to give her formal endorsement to Young Marco Rubio's presidential campaign.

In truth, it's not easy to see what this does to the very top of the field. Even given the rebound she's received in the wake of her handling of the murders at Mother Emanuel in Charleston, Haley's endorsement is not likely to shake loose many of the people who have signed on with He, Trump and neither is it like to dislodge much of the support given to Tailgunner Ted Cruz by the substantial Bible-banging community throughout the state. And, in 2012, Haley's endorsement of Willard Romney failed to keep N. Leroy Gingrich, definer of civilization's rules and leader (maybe) of the civilizing forces, from gaining the only primary victory of his extended book tour. But what it demonstrably may be is the final shot below the waterline of Jeb (!) Bush's floundering campaign.

Bush, it seems, romanced Haley hard. In another year, and with another member of the Bush family, it may even have worked. But this is the year in which He, Trump has pantsed Jeb (!) on live television a couple of dozen times. Cruz has beaten him to Gethsemane and Rubio is the new, fresh face that the national media is desperately trying to keep viable in the hopes that nobody notices that Young Marco is a big bag of feathers. That leaves Jeb (!) grappling with John Kasich for the ever-dwindling Not Insane faction of the Republican party, which doesn't even exist down here, and Kasich at least is still a governor now. There is no rationale for Jeb (!) Bush's candidacy, and it's quite possible that there never was one.

It's god's own joke that the Bush family may pass from our politics in South Carolina. It was from here that came Lee Atwater, who ratfcked Michael Dukakis on behalf of Poppy in 1988. It was here in 2000 that C-Plus Augustus turned Karl Rove—an Atwater acolyte—loose on John McCain. And, in 2016, Jeb (!) may well end up life and death for fourth place with noted narcoleptic Dr. Ben Carson. The grotesquerie is glorious, a Southern gothic end for a dynastic political family, now rendered merely a curiosity, like a camel in the barnyard.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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