Stephen Colbert bids a Hunger Games farewell to all the 2016 tributes culled in the post-Iowa 'bloodbath'

Stephen Colbert gives a Hunger Games farewell to the post-Iowa dropouts

(Image credit: Late Show)

last updated 4 February 2016

Stephen Colbert obviously taped Wednesday's Late Show before Rick Santorum dropped out of the presidential race, because in his latest installment of the "Hungry for Power Games," he paid homage to only three of the fallen candidates: Rand Paul, Martin O'Malley, and Mike Huckabee, all victims of the post-caucus "bloodbath in Iowa's cornucopia, an unprecedented harvest of brave tributes." Colbert, in his Caesar Flickerman persona, spent quite a bit of time celebrating the loss of Paul, noting that by dropping out of the race, Paul lived up to his rhetoric of shrinking the government. Also, he said, "Sen. Paul should take some comfort in living up to his father's legacy of also not being president."

Colbert's Flickerman then turned to the lone Democrat in the Iowa culling. "Also tossed on the funeral pyre of politics this week was Martin O'Malley — or as you may know him, 'Do I know him?'" Huckabee quit the race with a pretty good joke, prompting this remembrance from Colbert: "Brevity is the soul of wit, and yours was a very witty campaign indeed." Finally, Colbert tried to bid farewell to Jim Gilmore, spending a lot of time noting that the former Virginia governor got all of 12 votes, but Gilmore hasn't dropped out. So Colbert gave the Hunger Games treatment to the three candidates who had exited the race by taping time, memorializing the tribute from District 12 (Paul), District Abs (O'Malley), and, oddly, Huckad Strict. Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.