How Rubio can beat the odds and win the White House -- or how it could all fall apart

But there’s an alternative, similarly plausible future:

Rubio delivers his trademark rhetorical brilliance on Monday night, but the world is still reacting to Clinton’s entry into the race a day before. Being overshadowed by a better-funded candidate with a bigger name is a sign of things to come: Behind the scenes, Bush vacuums up Rubio’s would-be supporters in Florida and his would-be establishment donors, advisers, and voters nationwide.

Evangelicals give their votes to Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, or Rick Santorum. And even among the more secular segments of the GOP base, voters can’t forgive Rubio for his dalliance with “amnesty”—a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Rubio keeps giving great speeches, but they can’t rise above the noise created by better-funded candidates, and so, though he’s speaking powerfully, he’s also shouting into the wind. Rubio Nation is an apparition, Rubio Island is the reality, and the once ascendant candidate limps out of the primary and onto the sidelines—having given away a promising Senate career without ever sniffing a shot at the White House.