2012 Election Held 16 Months Early; New Federal Govt. Established in Kansas City

In a stunning show of pluck, defiance, cooperation, and electoral muscle, American citizens quietly held the 2012 election this past Wednesday, transferring all government operations to Kansas City, Missouri.  All operations of the new federal government opened smoothly Monday morning in a small, converted factory in a suburb of this most central of U.S. cities, hours before squabbling Washington politicians were aware of the turn of events.  A heavily guarded 20-foot electric fence was installed around the District of Columbia, where some of the more stubborn members of the previous government will be allowed to pretend they still run the country “until the species dies off.”   The Smithsonian Institute will subsume the District of Columbia as a new National History Exhibit. 

The United States Constitution, Bill of Rights, and all other governing documents remain the law of the land, and the Supreme Court, with the exception of Justice Clarence Thomas, will stay on.  Groundbreaking comedian and social activist Bill Cosby, conscripted to the court by national acclaim, has agreed to replace Thomas, who typically had no opinion on the change.

“It took some organizing, but pretty much everybody was on board with it,” said new congressman Sam Hurley (R-Westminster), a small business owner from California.  “We sent reverse 9-1-1 phone messages and email blasts to every registered voter in the country, told them where the polls would be, and got an 87% turnout,” Charbonneau said.  Locals donated ballots and polling booths,” Hurly said.  “Here in Westminster it was Bev and Harold Mays.  They’ve got a stationery store in Seal Beach.  Every city in America had someone who kicked in,” keeping the cost of the entire election down to $175,000. 

“It was a highly organized grassroots approach to the process,” said newly elected U.S. President Janet Whitcomb, a single mother from Atlanta.  “The PTA was a big help getting people up to speed by sending new voter registration packets home with kids and letting everyone know this was going to happen, but it was kind of hush-hush.”   Six candidates had submitted detailed plans for putting America back on its feet as well as their qualifications to achieve them.  A Facebook page with over 63 million “likes” kept the public abreast of the plans.  The remaining candidates have thrown their support behind the new president. 

“We’re all taxpayers, parents, and workers who believe in a forceful but peaceful change of government, and it’s clearly articulated in the Declaration of Independence.  So we just got to work,” said presidential candidate Carl Morrison of Madison, Wisconsin.   “Mrs. Whitcomb is a committed and organized leader who believes that American citizens are more than just life support for a bunch of good ol' boys with bad haircuts.  So here we are, sleeves rolled up and happy to help.”

“Listen, we tried to get the Feds in Washington to pay attention,” said Vice-President-elect Stan Hackett, “but they were so busy blowing their horns about deficits, tax roll-backs, and whatever they think constitutes marriage that they never got back to us.”  Hackett, an unemployed welder who described himself as “fed up” with national politics in general, knew President Whitcomb from their days at Pittsburgh’s Maynard Keynes High School.  “We kind of re-connected through Facebook and thought this would be a great idea.  I had no idea it would snowball like this, but it seems to be a smooth transition.  Everybody was real nice.”

Washington lobbyists were placed on a “no-fly—no interstate” list and forbidden to go any farther west than Cleveland.  Eyewitnesses reported that several dozen lobbyists had drowned trying to swim across the Mississippi River near St. Louis.

Whitcomb has already put together a broad-based cabinet of small business owners, engineers, artists, entrepreneurs, teachers, philanthropists, and foreign policy experts.  She and Hackett immediately presented a thoroughly balanced budget to members of the 468-seat New Congress that factors in an overhaul of the nation’s infrastructure and electrical grid, an equitable tax rate for all citizens, sustainable Social Security and Medicare programs, a renewable energy program that will be implemented by a panel of NASA and Cal Tech engineers, and a huge U.S. manufacturing base that unites union and non-union workers, providing fair pay and benefits. 

An entirely new comprehensive health system, created by a non-partisan legion of general practice physicians, urban hospitals, and holistic medicine practitioners, is being fine tuned.  Whitcomb and Hackett are already holding meetings with their European, Latin America, and Asian counterparts at a local community center in Kilroy, a Kansas City suburb.

Funding for the new administration, while complicated, received a full endorsement from the Internal Revenue Service and the GAO.   All four branches of the military pledged to transfer their allegiance to American citizens rather than lobbyists and “people who want us to get shot at protecting oil wells,” said General David Petraeus.  “The citizens approached us with their plan over the past few weeks, and I think everyone—from the brass to the boots—gave it a unanimous “Hell, yeah!”  

PTA collections, gift-wrap sales, and local craft fairs provided funding for the election.  “Everyone knew weeks ago that this was going to happen—the ground rules and everything,” said election coordinator Earl Pemberton, a retired U.S. Postal Service mail carrier.  “A panel of federal judges made sure that everything was within the legal bounds of the U.S. Constitution, so it’s pretty much a lock.”

“You may be in a ‘party,’” said newly elected senator Wendy Mickelson (D-Fairfield, CT), “but keep it to yourself.  We’re going for solutions.  If you aren’t, then you’re not invited to our party.”

The shock wave from the new election hit almost immediately, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 500 points in two hours, then correcting for a 900-point gain at Wednesday’s closing bell.  But since most citizens’ mutual fund holdings and home equity were wiped out three years ago, “no one much gives a shit,” said a passerby who had voted early in the new election.  Bank of America, Chase, and Citibank have already filed for government protection, but with the government now in Kansas, the filings were simply boxed up and left for recycling.

Pink slips were drawn up in advance for all officials, who received them within four hours of the election. Newly unemployed national leaders, met by U.S. Capitol security and closely watched as they packed, were stunned silent by the turn of events.  At the same time, the American Citizens Election Committee (ACE) took quick action to foreclose on the incumbents’ property and revoke their health care insurance.  Most were given two weeks’ severance pay and “job transition counseling” much like what has been offered to 90% of Americans who have lost their jobs since 2007.

One PAC, The Mother’s Milk Coalition, which opposes a woman’s right to choose in all circumstances “including not being pregnant,” was outraged at the “underhanded” approach to the election, which thwarted the group’s plans to throw heavy dollars into attack ads against many incumbent Republican moderates and liberals.  

“This is an outrage—elections aren’t supposed to be held until 2012, so we were robbed of months of ugly partisan smears,” complained one former incumbent member of the House, who was given a box and three hours to “clear the [heck] out.” 

Thousands of Tea Party members, who had gathered on the National Mall for a daytime reenactment of Paul Revere’s ride on ATV’s, seemed oblivious to the change that had taken place.  “Let ‘em play,” said one local man who had hosted a polling place in his living room.  “We’ve got things to do.”

Other now-defunct congressional leaders as well as 2012 presidential hopefuls such as Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry have vowed to fight the election in court.  A planned rally in Des Moines, organized by the trio and dubbed “A Day of Reckoning: God’s New Plan,” was abandoned when eleven people showed up.  Perry commented that, “God never mentioned this.”

The Democratic National Committee, clearly caught off guard, announced that it was searching for new symbols to explain the election.  Former President Barack Obama urged a wait-and-see response to the event.

Volunteers of all political affiliations set up polling places in less than 40 minutes throughout the nation Tuesday night.  By nightfall, lines of voters had already begun to form outside every polling place from Seattle to Miami, but when the media arrived to cover the story they were told only that it was a local audition for the next season of “Glee.”  

The idea to re-establish the nation’s capitol in Missouri was reached by popular consensus.  A secured Internet site, apparently overlooked by pollsters and media alike, allowed citizens to register and vote, and Kansas City received a simple majority.  Everyone agreed with the choice without argument, with one man declaring that, “we couldn’t wait another year and a half for somebody to start governing instead of arguing, so we stepped in to move things along.”

“No one could stand the idea of another marathon bullshit cycle,” explained vote counter Kyle Williams of Williams IT Systems (WITS) in nearby Randall, Kansas.  “Dave Tulley and I, who don’t agree on a damn thing, still managed to get everything wrapped up in about 12 hours.  This isn’t about parties and ideology—it’s about Americans taking a stand on behalf of the next ten generations.  We want to get back to work and back into the world.”

“Most Americans aren’t partisan,” said Mark Ellison, whose circuit board manufacturing job was “right-shored” two years ago.  “We just want leaders.  I think people would agree that many 7^th graders would do a better job of resolving our problems than the people in office now.  In fact, one new senator from California is a sophomore from Modesto Community College, who’s got some great ideas about fiscal responsibility, job creation, accountability, taxation, and reversing deficits.   We’re delighted.”

Americans went about business as usual Monday morning as new private sector job growth rose by 2 percent within 12 hours of the announcement, which came just as Pachinko awakened from this most pleasant and reassuring dream.