The meteoric fall of Florida Senator Marco Rubio – a man who once adorned the cover of Time Magazine as the “Republican Savior”  – continues to suck the oxygen out of the establishment bubble. Rubio was to have been the “future” of the GOP, a smiling face who received the seal of approval from the powerful neocon media gaggle as well as the messiah who would draw the new Latino demographic to the party in droves. There will be analysis aplenty as the carcass of Rubio’s campaign is plopped upon the autopsy table to determine the exact cause of death but life goes on in the big political crab barrel.

It didn’t take long for Nimrata Nikki Randhawa or as she now known – Nikki Haley – to flee Rubio like a jilted gold-digger the instant that he became yesterday’s garbage. Haley acted with lightning fast speed and has jumped straight from the honeymoon suite at La Casa El Rubio to the velvet-draped room with the heart-shaped hot tub in the Hacienda De La Cruz – dumping Marco and shacking up with Ted before the Tuesday night tears were even dry on Rubio’s pillow. While Governor Haley stopped short of formally endorsing Cruz that could come soon if she senses an opening as a potential V.P. pick.

Politico reports that “Nikki Haley backs Ted Cruz”:

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Wednesday said she hoped Ted Cruz would pull through with the Republican nomination.

The statement comes a day after Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the candidate she had previously supported, suspended his campaign.

“I thought that Marco Rubio was and is an amazing public servant. I think that he really tapped into so much of what people want in terms of the American dream,” Haley told reporters in Columbia, according to a video. “I think he had a lot of knowledge in terms of what they had to do, but it obviously wasn’t his time. You know the only thing I can say now is my hope and my prayer is that Sen. Cruz can come through this and that he can really get to where he needs to go.”

Haley declined to say whether she would formally endorse Cruz, remarking, “I don’t know that that part matters.”

“If anybody asks me, that’s what I want to see happen,” she said.

In assessing Cruz’s path to the nomination, Haley said the Texas senator has been “solid and strong the entire way.”

It’s hard to believe that this is the same woman who less than a month ago was passionate about the handsome young prince and gushed that:

“I want a president who understands they have to go back to Washington, D.C., and bring a conscience back to our Republicans,” Haley, a Lexington Republican, told a crowd of hundreds gathered outside a Chapin warehouse.

Haley said she made the decision as a mother who wants a safer, more prosperous nation for her children and as the wife of a combat veteran who wants more support for the military.

Haley did not say why she didn’t choose others candidates running in Saturday’s GOP primary.

“We have good people running for president, and I thank them today for their sacrifice and their willingness to serve,” she said. “But my job was to find the person I thought who could do it the best.

“I wanted someone with fight. I wanted somebody with passion. I wanted somebody who has the conviction to do the right thing,” she said. “But I wanted somebody humble enough (who) remembers that you work for all the people.”

Loyalty is truly fleeting in national politics.