If there was a moment during the early primary season when you could almost feel the self-delusion infecting the Republican establishment, it was on the night of the South Carolina primary, when an utterly deflated Jeb Bush, onetime shoo-in for the nomination, suspended his campaign, and Marco Rubio, the supposed “last best hope” of the GOP, declared a sort of victory without actually winning. The Florida senator had come in second, barely, eking out a win over Ted Cruz by two-tenths of a point – though, as it would be argued incessantly, this was a score, given that Rubio came in fifth in New Hampshire and had almost been left for dead.
Some 400 South Carolinians had shown up for Rubio’s election-night watch party, which was held in a cavernous…
