OBAMANATION
Barack Obama Wins Second Term as President

(Chicago, IL) — Barack Obama was re-elected President of the United States, ending a grueling campaign that seemed to go on for years instead of months. Indeed, the first presidential contest that cost billions of dollars to run on both sides allowed bitter, negative television and radio ads to run for months and months.

The outcome of the election was not a given. In fact, the first results of the election ended in a tie. Obama and Romney each received five votes in Dixville Notch, NH, the first tie in the town's history. It was only the second time in over 40 years that the town's majority did not vote for a Republican; the first time was in 2008. Obama and Romney staff immediately sent lawyers to Dixville Notch to assess the ballots.

"We have to make sure that each vote is counted, and counted fairly," said a lawyer from the firm Dewey, Cheatam and Howe, speaking on condition of anonymity. "After all, we want to make sure that each of the 12 votes gets counted accurately."

But, in the end, Republican Mitt Romney (R-MA) and his running mate, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) were defeated, in some cases by slim margins, especially in "battleground" states noted for their electoral numbers. Romney and Ryan even managed to lose their home states of Massachusetts and Wisconsin, respectively. Romney also lost his adopted home state of Michigan.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) failed to fulfill the single issue he focused on for four years: making Barack Obama a one-term president. "Now, Mr. McConnell will fight to limit Obama to two terms," said a McConnell spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, apparently unaware of the Constitution's limit of two terms for the presidency.

Obama, the first African-American president, is only the second Democrat to win re-election since the 1930s (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936, 1940, 1944; and Bill Clinton, 1996).

Romney called Obama to concede (and started with "I'm Mitt Romney, and I approved this concession phone call!" according to a Romney source, speaking on condition of anonymity) around midnight, then delivered a concession speech to his supporters. FLATLINE has obtained exclusive text from Romney's speech that didn't quite make it to the final cut:

• "I'd like to thank my supporters, and my detractors, for flushing over $1 billion down the toilet."
  
  
• "I'd like to tell the 47% who weren't going to support me in the first place that I hope you move on with your miserable, worthless lives, and think of me fondly and often as I retrieve my cars by using the elevator in my house."
  
  
• "I'm truly, truly sorry that I won't be able to throw 30 million Americans off their health care plans come January. Sorry for the insurance companies, that is."
  
  
• "Some people think I told Detroit to drop dead. Well, if you had owned a Cimarron, you'd be telling Detroit to drop dead, too. I mean, really, that was a Cadillac? It was a piece of garbage!"
  
  
• "I'll now ride off into the sunset, looking forward to collecting Social Security in just a few years. In my case, I don't consider it an entitlement."
  
  

Still up in the air was the disposition of Romney Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the former Iraqi Information Minister under Saddam Hussein. It was not clear if he would retire, move on with Romney, or switch to another job. What was clear, however, was that Sahaf was not taking the defeat graciously.

"These people who say Romney has lost have no morals," claimed Sahaf. "They have no shame lying about the outcome of the election! Obama supporters have no shame about spreading these lies and falsehoods. I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that whoever says Romney has lost will have their stomachs roasted in Hell!"