Could Jon Huntsman have quit the presidential race because he feared an embarrassing loss to Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert? The comedian’s Super PAC is reportedly on the air with a TV ad buy in the Charleston, South Carolina media market.

The ad charges that Romney must be a serial killer if he believes corporations are people and yet dismantled several of them anyway while CEO of private equity firm Bain Capital. John Lithgow narrates:

No word yet on the size of the buy, but the very fact of its existence is sure to further outrage voters by drawing attention to the absurdity of the campaign finance system in the post Citizens United world.

That Stephen Colbert — with his millions of devoted fans and perhaps even millions of dollars in Super PAC money — has taken this on as a pet cause could have a real affect on the debate this fall.

Huntsman, who echoed Joe Lieberman’s now laughable 2004 claim of “Joementum” made right before he finished fifth in New Hampshire and dropped out of the race, initially claimed a “ticket to ride” from a distant third-place finish of his own in the Granite State.

Perhaps it just took some time to sink in. But this brings to an end what was from the start a hopeless presidential campaign in a year where pragmatism and John McCain-style appeals to ascetic patriotism are falling on deaf ears.