Rick Santorum Quits GOP Campaign to Return to 1955

GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA. Noted time-traveler and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum announced Tuesday that he is suspending his presidential campaign and will return to his home year of 1955. The announcement all but ensures that his rival Mitt Romney will secure the Republican nomination for president.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters, Santorum declared, “We made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over, we are not done fighting. Today, I will return to 1955 and warn President Eisenhower of the devastating effects that liberalism and social permissiveness are going to have on our great nation in the future, or the present, depending where you live in the space-time continuum. Also, it will be nice to go back to a place where my name is not synonymous with the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.”

Despite trailing far behind Romney in fundraising, the denizen of the past managed to pick up a string of surprising primary and caucus victories that for a time called into question the seeming inevitability of a Romney nomination. According to pollster James Bloomquist, Santorum achieved this by appealing to a sense of nostalgia for the “heyday of the nuclear family” among many conservative voters.

“Santorum essentially ran his campaign on what was for him the status quo, but for everyone else it was about repealing more than a half-century of social progress,” said Bloomquist. “By appealing to those conservatives who regard the Leave It to Beaver 1950's as the apex of American civilization, Santorum gave Romney a pretty good run for his tax sheltered money,” he said, recalling the ex-senator’s regressive views on birth control, homosexuality, and women in the military.  

Santorum’s withdrawal speech struck a somewhat melancholy note. “This campaign was never about me,” he said. “It was about a vision of the past. It was about an aspiration for us all to progress backward to the time from whence I came. I am truly sorry that I wasn’t able to bring 1955 to you, and I’m even sorrier that my 1982 DeLorean isn’t big enough to bring you all to 1955.”

The announcement left his supporters visibly downtrodden. “It’s such a shame,” said factory worker Ernest Pierson. He’s a throwback. He’s not something you see often. Like a wheat-back penny.”

Campaign volunteer Sarah Knowles said she drove three and a half hours from Pittsburgh just to hear Santorum’s speech. “I don’t like it here. Do you think he could take me back to 1955 with him?” wondered a teary-eyed Knowles.

Asked if he had plans to transcend the space-time continuum in the future/past, Santorum left open the possibility. “After I let people in 1955 know they can stop building fallout shelters, I might go back to 1946 to tell the future governnor of Michigan to start using rubbers.”

At press time, Santorum was seen leaving the event with a Dr. Emmett Brown.