Political Obit Page: Former Florida Gov. Jeb! Bush, once presumed to be the man to lead the Republicans into the 2016 elections, has quit the race after failing to interest or excite the voters. Bush said last night after finishing fourth in the South Carolina primary, “I congratulate my competitors that are remaining on the island.”

The son and brother of two former presidents, the 63 year old former Florida governor was politically beaten to death by billionaire Donald Trump, who mocked Bush for being low energy and dull — taunts that had the ring of truth. Bush robotically stuck to fundamental Republican positions. He’s pro-gun, anti-abortion, and talks big about national defense and security. But he was drowned out by the human loudspeaker Donald Trump and failed to tap into the voter anger spurring the Trump movement.

It’s Political: Trump won the South Carolina primary by an overwhelming margin, 32.5 percent, continuing on his path to the Republican nomination for president.

Marco Rubio finished at 22.5, and Ted Cruz finished at 22.3 percent. That’s significant for Rubio, who pulled up from second in pre-election polling. Treating it like a win, Rubio said, “Now the children of the Reagan revolution are ready to assume the mantle of leadership.”

John Kasich, at 7.6 percent, and Ben Carson, 7.2 percent, vow that they are staying in the race.

Postgame: Trump continues to confound the party bosses, leaving behind the institutional Republicans Cruz, Rubio, and the now former candidate Bush. Damon Linker writes for The Week that, “A party with such a large bloc of voters who diverge so sharply from the party’s organizing ideology is either a party that will need to significantly change its ideological direction — or one on the verge of breaking apart.”

He goes on, “What voters hear when he rails against the stupidity of the country’s political leadership, the incompetence of George W. Bush, and what he likes to call the complete disaster of American policy in Iraq and the broader Middle East is a man willing both to face the ugly truth that they themselves perceive and to call out those who refuse to acknowledge it.”

The Democrats: Hillary Clinton edged out Bernie Sanders in Nevada, 52.4 to 47.5 percent. Sanders, though, called it progress. On Facebook he posted, “We were 40 points down in Nevada and performed better than the establishment ever expected.”

The Democratic South Carolina primary is next weekend.

World: Fiji has declared a state of disaster after a cyclone ripped through the archipelago, causing widespread destruction — Scientists say global warming is likely to speed the geographic spread of mosquitos that carry the Zika virus — Two Serbian hostages were among those killed when the US bombed an Islamic State training camp in Libya.

The Obit Page: Samuel Willenberg, the last known survivor of Nazi Germany’s Treblinka death camp has died in Israel at age 93. Roughly 870,000 people were murdered at Treblinka and Willenberg was one of only 67 survivors who got out during a mass breakout as the Germans gunned down the prisoners. At the camp Willenberg was assigned to sort the personal belongings of people who had been sent to the gas chambers. He later said, “It never leaves me. It stays in my head. It goes with me always.”

The Job Market: NASA has openings for between eight to fourteen new astronauts to ride into the void on the next generation of spacecraft, and possibly shoot for Mars. Even the admissions office at Harvard would be shocked by the number of applications NASA now has to sort through … 18,300.

-30-