The Late Show's Stephen Colbert pays tribute to the latest round of 2016 presidential candidates to drop out of the race, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee and Martin O'Malley while getting a swipe in on Jim Gilmore for staying in after receiving a whole twelve votes in Iowa: WATCH: Stephen Colbert Roasts the Republican Dropouts in the 2016 Race:
The first tribute is to Senator Rand Paul, who set fire to the United States tax code in a campaign ad, and who came in fifth with 4.5 % of the vote. Paul announced he was suspending his campaign for presidency, with this note: “The fight is far from over. I will continue to carry the torch for liberty in the United States Senate."
“Yes the torch of liberty still burns, just keep it away from whatever’s nesting on your head,” Colbert jokes. “You‘d think being an eye doctor he would have seen this coming. People had such high hopes for Rand winning. In that those who hoped were clearly high.”
Mike Huckabee, on the other hand, said he wasn’t suspending his campaign because of votes but because voters are sick of him.
“Huckabee’s boldest strategy was defending Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused same-sex marriage licenses,” Colbert reminds us. He even went so far as offer to go to jail in her place: “Jail, the White House, anywhere the government is picking up the rent, he just needs a place to crash.”
And although Jim Gilmore recieved 12 votes in Iowa—not 12 percent, 12 votes—he is still running for president, somewhere. But actually, as Colbert points out, there are more people in Iowa named Jim Gilmore than votes received by Jim Gilmore, and all of them are now more electable.
