Obama, McCain Accidentally Choose Same Vice Presidential Candidate

The Obama and McCain campaigns today announced, at two hastily arranged Washington, D.C. news conferences, that they had accidentally chosen the same Vice Presidential candidate, who accepted both offers and will campaign on both tickets.

Former Senator Lyman Foster of Georgia, 61, first elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican, ran and won his second term as a Democrat, and spent his third and last term in the Senate as an independent.

Foster won each of his victories by resounding margins, desipte the fact that voters had no idea of what he actually stood for. He will run this fall on an Obama/Foster ticket and also as part of a McCain/Foster ticket.

"We asked him first," a spokesman for Obama told reporters. "It was our idea to make Foster a vice presidential candidate. The McCain people are just copycats."

"We were planning on asking him all the time," a McCain spokesman told reporters. "It's just that Senator McCain misplaced his phone number. He looked for it everywhere. He would have asked Foster sooner, but he couldn't find the number."

Foster won respect from fellow Senators on both sides of the aisle during his 18 years in the Senate but often had trouble making up his mind; this fact appeared to have played a large role in his decision to run for Vice President on both the Republican and Democratic lines.

Foster brings unique bipartisan credentials that make him an ideal Vice Presidential candidate for both sides.

"He's strong on foreign policy, he's Caucasian, he's older, and he's a somewhat bitter, religious gun-lover from an economically depressed small town, which helps Obama with certain key constituencies," Professor Paul Martland of the University of South Idaho, a noted expert on vice presidential candidates, told the Dissociated Press.

"And he's neat and tidy," Martland observed, "and he can remember where he left his car keys, speeches, and nuclear codes, so he brings some needed stability to McCain's somewhat chaotic campaign style."

When asked how the two campaigns could "share" a vice presidential candidate, Martland noted that there was no precedent for this phenomenon in American political history.

"But there is when kids play football or softball," Martland noted, "when one kid, usually the best athlete, either plays quarterback for both teams or pitches for both teams. That's pretty much what we're looking at here."

Other characteristics of Foster that make him appealing to both sides are his stands for and against the Iraq War, for and against capital punishment, for and against tax hikes, and for and against prayer in public schools.

"He's the perfect Vice President for modern times," Martland said. "Whatever you like, he likes, but if you don't like it, neither does he. Because he never sticks to any one position for very long, to put it simply, the guy just can't lose."