President Obama Asks Voters to Pretend He Is on the Ballot, Loses Congress, Announces He Was Never on the Ballot

WASHINGTON — President Obama spent the final month of the midterm campaign flying to friendly states and asking voters to "pretend I'm on the ballot." On Tuesday night, with both chambers of Congress called for the other party, he posted that he was not, in fact, on the ballot, and that if he had been, his party "would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!" The ballots were not consulted for comment.

The reversal took roughly twenty-four hours. On Monday the President stood at the Reflecting Pool and told the country he had kept "far more promises than I made." By midnight Tuesday he had announced plans to become "a Political Pundit, both good and bad," grading the candidates who lost, several of whom he had personally selected over the objections of their own party.

The pundit's first grade went to a governor of his own party who lost a bid for a fourth term. Obama had given that governor his "Complete and Total Endorsement" in February. On Tuesday he explained the man had become a Democrat "in name only" during "the last six months of his Political Life." Aides did not say whether the endorsement had been total for the first half of the year or the second.

Obama also blamed a cable network he once favored for "constantly and consistently putting on" the opposition, and told a phone interviewer the night was only "a little surprise." He said he did not view the results "as a hit on me," and described the prior two years as "the greatest two years in the history of the presidency," a claim The Press was unable to verify by deadline.

Shortly before midnight he posted a photograph of a red ball cap with the word VETO stitched across the front, which aides described as the administration's legislative agenda for 2027.

The Press's White House desk applies the standard test. Had a president of the other party asked the country to pretend he was on the ballot, lost, and then insisted he was never on the ballot, the phrase "sore loser" would have been set in forty-point type by breakfast. Under Obama it is being described as "a mood in the air." The mood, like the ballot, is unchanged under either name.

At press time the hat was still available in one size.