Mitt Romney Secretly Prime Minister of Canada

Ottawa, Canada, February 5, 2008 -- Late into Super Tuesday primary election voting today, two intrepid investigative journalists with the Washington Post revealed that Mitt Romney, Republican candidate for president, has for over two years also been the Canadian Prime Minister. The discovery is expected to throw some doubt on the future of Mr. Romney's campaign.

“We'd been checking out Mitt Romney's background as part of our routine reporting ahead of the Republican primary elections,” Robert Hoffman, one of the Washington Post reporters who made the surprising Romney discovery, said.

“We found all the usual things—son of privilege; wealthy, political family; ethically suspect business dealings; no fixed moral compass—but the fact that Romney is also Canada's Prime Minister took us by complete surprise. Apparently he was elected exactly two years ago after the collapse of the Liberal government. It almost makes me feel a little America-centric, not knowing that. We should probably pay more attention to our friendly neighbors to the north.”

Mr. Romney, according to Mr. Hoffman and the other investigative reporter, Dustin Redford, was elected by a narrow margin in the aftermath of several devastating scandals that felled the government of otherwise popular Canadian PM Paul Martin.

“Mitt Romney's main platform planks, best we can tell, were the resettlement of Inuit tribes for oil exploration and the automatic deportation of illegal immigrant elk,” Mr. Redford said. “Somehow, that must have struck a chord with the Canadian electorate.”

Mitt Romney, while an American citizen, could nonetheless become Prime Minister of Canada due to Canada's more liberal electoral laws which allow anyone to be elected to higher office on the condition that they can identify three out of Canada's five, or possibly six, major provinces.

A spokesman for Mr. Romney said, "Mr. Romney wasn't trying to keep it a secret or anything. He just didn't think the Canadian Prime Minister thing was relevant in the context of the GOP primaries."

“The question now, of course, is whether or not the fact that Mr. Romney is already prime minister of another country automatically disqualifies him for consideration as a presidential candidate,” Mr. Hoffman said. “Someone should probably look in the Constitution. But we may as well wait until the Republican primary election results are in, then cross that bridge if we come to it.”

A spokesman for the Mitt Romney for President campaign said that Mr. Romney was currently unavailable for comment due to “a salmon emergency” in Nova Scotia.

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor