The resistable rise of Donald Drumpf

While the Democratic field of nominees was rapidly whittled down with the hopeful no-hopers falling away leaving the unhopeful no-hopers (though Martin O'Malley(?) still beat Vermin Supreme in votes even after he had ended his run after getting 0.5% in the first caucus/primary Iowa) plus Hillary Clinton and an increasingly beleaguered Bernie Sanders - though the latter will still take things all the way to the Convention like for the Republicans in 2012, the libertarian Ron Paul (because he's Ron Paul!) - the GOP field has often resembled whack-a-mole, especially in the debates.  Donald 'The Donald' Trump, giving the lie to the implied antonym of 'politics is showbiz for ugly people', keeps getting whacked and keeps popping up again.  John Oliver, the comic host, has launched a hashtag recalling Trump's old family name of Drumpf.  But the Republican candidates after getting clobbered too many times, either in debates or lack of support in voting after starting to drop like flies.
Union-busting governor Paul Walker was Icarus, seen as the 'bright' dark horse, campaigning around Iowa and then posing by a motorcycle as if to suggest he was some lone rider, burned up before even the first voting began.  Then Mike 'Huckster' Huckabee, Rick 'Oops' Perry and Sick Rantorum, I mean Rick Santorum, went the way of all flesh.  It must have been particularly galling for Santorum to register just 1.5 % in Iowa after winning the state in 2012 (though not before it was erroneously and momentum-buildingly given to Mitt Romney).  'Ayn' Rand Paul betrayed his father's principles and despite barely registering in Iowa, he did not take the libertarian fight all the way to the Convention.  Other undercards also rapidly folded, such as Carly 'Unemployment Queen' Fiorina.  Chris Christie, supposedly the hope of the moderate Republican wing, signed out after eviscerating Marco 'Marcobot' Rubio in the debate but disappointing in the New Hampshire primary.  'Jeb Bush!' (or 'upside down exclamation mark Jeb!' for the Hispanic voter) clung on to South Carolina though to take the words of The Travelling Wilburys he had "been beat up and battered around, been sent up but been shot down."  He even wheeled out his mother and his brother-who-must-not-be-mentioned president.  The 'America' tweet of a personally engraved handgun was as gauche as one can get and when he said in a debate, "My mother is the strongest person I know," Trump hit back with one of the best quips of the election so far, "Maybe she should be running."  That would have possibly set up a re-run of Bush versus Clinton but also, so long as ninetysomething George H W Bush survives, set up the tantalising certainty of the first 'First Man' also having been president.  Yet he failed again in the Palmetto State and if he couldn't win in this heartland, he was doomed.
And so then there was five.  Trump, Rubio, Ted 'Cruising for a bruising' Cruz, Ben 'Wikipedia' Carson and John 'I'm still here' Kasich.  The first three garnered all the headlines and virtually all the delegates between them on Super Tuesday.  This prompted Carson to suspend his campaign and formally end it yesterday.  The death of former President Calvin 'Silent Cal' Coolidge elicited the witticism from Dorothy Parker, "How can they tell?"  One might say the same of ending of the campaign of the 'softly spoken,' nay somnolent, Carson whose inept, chaotic run spent most of the donations on additional fund-raising.
The doomsday clock ticks ever closer for Kasich if he can't win his own state of Ohio and similarly for Rubio (who at least has one state to his name) if he tanks in his backyard of Florida - it could be a 'double firing' on 15th March on "The Presidential Celebrity Apprentice"...  A brokered Convention to defeat Trump via the backdoor is seemingly dead-in-the-water after Rince Preibus (what a name, not needing a moniker, unlike Bill Clinton), chief of CPAC, the annual conservative political conference, said the people will decide.  But despite the agonies and hand-wringing of the Republican Party, a lot of Trump supporters are Democrats, who only vote once in a generation.  The possibility of President Trump is very real.