The dream may not be dead yet but it is on life support. The face of the new Republican party of the new American century – Marco Rubio – is now losing ground in his home state of Florida. Rarely in politics has a product been marketed so hard by so many only to be resoundingly pronounced dead on arrival as Rubio has. Now with loads of early voting already completed and Trump increasing his fire on the neocon’s favorite cabana boy it looks as though Rubio may even be bested by Ted Cruz on his home turf – a running drop kick in the balls if there ever was one.

Fox News reports that “Poll: Rubio drops to third in Florida, days before big Tuesday primaries”:

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio has dropped to third place just days ahead of a crucial primary in his home state of Florida, according to a CBS News poll released Sunday.

The primary, among five Tuesday, is essentially a must-win for Rubio, who significantly trails front-runner Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the delegate count. And Rubio’s drop in the poll appears to be another indication that his campaign might soon come to an end.

On Sunday, he continued to criticize the violence at Trump rallies, saying the candidate and protestors share the blame.

“You have a leading contender for president telling people in his audience, ‘Go ahead and punch someone in the face. I’ll pay your legal bills,’ ” Rubio said in Florida. “That’s wrong if our kids did it. That is disastrous if a president does it.” He has also acknowledged that some of the protestors appeared to be paid.

The CBS News 2016 Battleground Tracker poll shows Trump — who has several, popular golf-resort properties in Florida — maintaining his lead in the state’s winner-take-all primary, in which 99 delegates are at stake.

The billionaire businessman has 44 percent of the vote among registered voters in the state, compared to Cruz at 24 percent and Rubio at 21 percent.

At a rally Sunday in Ohio, Trump tried to portray Rubio as an unpopular senator who was elected in 2010 to go to Congress but has since repeatedly missed votes to instead campaign and further his political career.

If Rubio does get clobbered tomorrow in Florida – and there is no reason to believe that he won’t be – it will set off a wave of second guessing over whether he should have dropped out rather than have his face rubbed in the fact that he is widely hated in his home state. If a loss is bad enough then it may effectively suffocate Rubio’s national political career in the crib which would be a damned good thing for America.

(Image: the ridiculous logo from the in the bag for Rubio Tampa Bay Times political section)