Dems: Air Quality Affects Voter Preference

Democratic Party leaders met Friday to determine why so many people in the middle of the country voted for Mitt Romney instead of President Obama in last Tuesday's national election. After several hours of map study and discussion, the Dems identified one common denominator: fresh air.

 "We were sitting around looking at these maps trying to figure out what was going on out there in that sea of red in the middle of the country," said Senior Obama Strategist David Axelrod.  "And it finally hit me-an abundance of oxygen must be messing with these peoples brains to not have voted for the President."

 "We recognize that oxygen is an essential element for all Americans, but its bio-availability and its seemingly ubiquitous presence in the outlying regions of our country, you know away from population centers, must be playing more of a role in voter preference than any of us would have imagined," said DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. "These people's judgment is definitely being compromised," she said.

Party leaders think identifying the so called "fresh air voter trend"  will give them a leg up on Republicans moving forward. "Since Republicans don't really understand chemistry, we are hoping they will totally miss this trend and keep doing whatever it is they've been doing," said Axelrod. "And, if they do find the link, we're confident they'll think it's "O-1" instead of "O-2."

Axelrod, while confident that he has found something politically noteworthy, was unsure Friday what the Democrats would do about it. "Right now I'm just giddy that we've discovered this phenomenon, so tonight I simply want to savor it," said Axelrod. "Tomorrow we'll begin developing a plan to redistribute carbon monoxide from our cities to those blasted red counties."

The so-called "oxygen gap" is not anything new, as political scientists first identified it in 1965 when the husband and wife tandem of Oliver and Lisa Douglas first debated the merits of "Fresh Air!" vs. "Times Square!" in the CBS sitcom Green Acres.