The once strong union of fifty states and one district of Colombia soon began to run out of steam of the industrial and economic powerhouse. On the tail end of the Republican administration of Chicken Fried Steak, the Economic Minister Lima Bean found himself in a hotel room in Michigan with a box of corn flakes in bed with him, the scandal forcing his resignation and getting smells worse than the disaster that had been President Pretzel's war against the Japanese and Prime Minister Sushi. More scandals soon emerged, with a heavy blame on Minister of Housing and Urban Development Crossaint, which turned out to be a spy for the french government of King Breadstick III. Even after administrative purges and damage control were taken, the american people felt as if the republicans weren't exactly being entirely honest with their intentions.
In would step a young one term governor of Illinois named Grilled Cheese Sandwich into the national spotlight, with his own personal investigation that led to the resignation of Bean from office. He was widely seen as a potential 2000 presidential contender, and despite him shooting down such a
"ludicrous and ridiculous idea", he did see several merits to him getting elected as commander in chef. So, in a televised address to over eleven million people, he formally declared himself a contender for the democratic nomination for the presidency in the year 2000. He would stand for an expansion of Kitchencare medical programs for all Americans, slash military spending, increase funding for education all while promising to protect the Culinary Constitution and Articles of Confection. He would slam the record of President Steak's alleged use of torture in the interrogation of three bowls of oatmeal that were part of the terrorist group All-Quaker.
That's not to say there were not other possible contenders looking at the democratic nomination, with one being a young senator from Idaho named French Fry, who had the name recognition of being the son of the former secretary of education named Mashed Potatoes that served under Steak. However, his personality proved to not be golden brown and delicious, but rather cold,soggy and disgusting. It was apparent that Fry's personal struggles with several prescription preservatives and pain killers was putting off to several democratic deep wingers, and so Fry would drop out of the race on the third of April 2000, leaving just Sandwich to whip together several unpledged delegates and cross the finish line at the nomination convention come July.
Meanwhile, the Republican contenders included former Vice President Cinnamon Roll, house representative from Wyoming's at large district Vanilla Wafer, and incumbent senator Donut from the state of North Carolina. Roll seemed to have an early lead in the polls, though losses in the South Carolina and Georgian primaries set his campaign sputtering at the start line, with his withdrawal in July of 1999. Wafer then looked the next promising contender, though a series of gaffes about baking bread and a racist remark in regards to white and wheat bread handicapped his campaign, as it was forced on the defensive about these remarks for the winter of 2000 until his withdrawal in April of 2000. As a result, their presidential nominee became Donut, who picked a relatively easy choice of Ice Cream as his running mate, much to the ire of a handful of radical vegetables, who had wanted to stick on former naval admiral Parsnip V as the running mate. These radical veggies would have consequences for the republican party in this election and another one.
With the nominees chosen and the nation ready to pick between each, the campaign began with your typical mud slinging from either side. Donut alleged that there had been a "skin" growing on the vice presidential nominee of Tomato Soup,pointing to his years of legislative experience in office that would have made his administration seem out of touch with the rest of the nation's plights. This was offset by the fact that the Sandwich campaign slammed Donut with the truthful accusation that he had literally had his family business and the vice presidency handed to him on a sliver platter, driving away voters that might have enjoyed his personality instead.
Sandwich also hammered Donut on the current scandals occurring within the white house and congress, slamming him for being
"as lazy as a pack of chips." Another point of contention was their stance on the military, with Sandwich vowing to cut spending back responsibly and respectfully within the full scope of the office's powers. Donut would leap on the opportunity to decry Sandwich as a
"Sushi-War draft dodger" demanding to see his draft card, to which he would proudly defend his actions within Japan, sharing several stories about his service in Japan, while also asking about what his roll was within the conflict. This was made moot by Sandwich noting that Donut had only served two months before having an arranged honorable discharge orchestrated by the powerful positions his father had within politics.
Soon, election night came, and with the calling of the states of Ohio and Illinois, Donut would pick up the telephone and conceded to president-elect Grilled Cheese Sandwich. The political implications in the regards to both the senate in house also saw large margins of increase within the House for the democratic party while also picking up 4 senate seats from the republicans.
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Four Years of President Grilled Cheese had proven mixed results, with unpopularity building from his failure in the closure of Fork Bay in Cuba, with attempted negotiations by Presidente Bayou Pigs failing miserably, and a hostile senate to his legislative agenda, which would see bill after bill holding funerals after passing the house and dying in one of the many senate committees. Senate Majority Leader Baloney would vehemently oppose bipartisanship, attempting to make the president look weak long enough for the 2004 election to oust him in favor of a conservative administration once more. One slight benefits was an abolition of standardized testing and more favorable conditions to teacher's unions and funding for schools K-12.
However, his other attempts at Kitchencare expansion and slashing military spending would flop spectacularly with the occasional high water mark of 42 votes in favor. Cheese then switched to negotiating with Baloney, who would reluctantly agree to work in passing a heavily watered down version of a slight slashing of military spending while also expanding the Kitchencare medical programs by a little bit. His most vehement supporters found themselves disappointed in the work his administration had done, all while his enemies closed in for a possible knock out punch in 2004. All the republicans would need to do is avoid any major gaffes with whichever candidate they picked, slam the ineffectiveness of the policies of grilled cheese, and promote a positive message of the old era of president Steak.
Remember the veggies? Well they're back again. Senator from Arizona Broccoli soon gathered enough delegates with a vehement hatred for the incumbent administration to win the nomination. His running mate proved to be the popular celebrity, movie star and super food of Kale, also being the first female running mate of a political campaign since Carrot picked Lettuce in the 1988 presidential election.
They would first attack President Cheese in the sacrificing the nation's defense while increasing "dangerous socialism" within the country. Cheese then hit back with the "corrupt bastard" of Baloney, who had held up much of his proposed legislative agenda on the back burner and in committee deaths while pinning the blame on the republican controlled congress, arguing that a change in that legislative branch would lead to an easier time in passing legislation through and providing Americans
"with the knowledge that their government works."
The results of the 2004 election were nail biting, with the flipping of Michigan for the first time since 1976 for the republicans, along with gains of both Florida and Nevada into their conservative column. However, the election all came down to New Mexico, with an initial lead of 135 votes for Broccoli, with that changing in a lower court ordered recount, which was then challenged and stopped by the district court, which was then challenged and proceeded to the Supreme Court, which ruled in the case of
Sandwich v. Broccoli on a 5-4 line that the District court's ruling was unconstitutional and that the recount must proceed. On November 24th,2004 the final results came with a narrow 1 vote lead out of the 292,000 total votes cast for Sandwich, flipping the state and ultimately resulting the the re-election of Grilled Cheese.
Despite all of this, when the electoral college finally met, a single faithless elector cast his vote for Broccoli/Kale, despite being pledged to Sandwich/Soup. The results of this caused outrage in half of the nation, exemplifying the division along party lines the united states had been experiencing throughout it's last half a century of existence.
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With the itsy bitsy electoral college victory by President Grilled Cheese Sandwich, he now looked to the legislative branch, which saw the political power of Baloney weaken until his deposition from the position of Majority Leader with the democratic seizure of the senate in the 2004 election, which they would keep until 2008. Now working with the much friendlier Majority Leader Mayo, he finally got the Kitchencare Expansion for America bill passed through both the house and the senate in 2005, with that being one of his proudest political achievements as president. This was boosted by the death of Supreme Court Justice Rootbeer Ginsburger, enabling him to have his first supreme court pick of his presidency in his second term of office, which became the D.C court of Appeal judge Warm E. Burger, which passed 264 to 171 in the house and 57 to 43 in the senate (with 4 republicans joining in favor).
He soon had another chance for a nominee with the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Steam Broiler replacing him with Third District Court judge Marble Garlic which passed 270 to 165 in the house and 55 to 45 in the senate (with just 2 republicans in favor).
2008 soon rolls around and with the term limited Grilled Cheese unable to seek another four more years as he had previously in 2004, change was begining to be smelt in the air. The second term of president Cheese proved to have a handful of roadblocks, such as a stagnating economic conditions and a slew of mass shootings which sparked gun control legislation which proved to merely raise the age of owning a firearm of 16 to 18, along with a ban on semi- automatic and automatic weapons. There also proved to be a large number of hate crimes committed by white bread supremacists against the wheat bread minority,prompting the lobbying of congress by wheat bread interest groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Wheat Bread, or NAAWB. Cheese would attempt to veto legislation passed by congress that would build a large pipeline of canola oil from the gulf of mexico all the way to Alaska, complaining about it's large price tag. However, the one thing that ultimately handed the keys to the white house over to the republicans was on August 4th, 2008, known as
Moldy Monday, as the stock market imploded along with the housing bubble being burst and a frantic panic on the banks set in. Cheese would authorize federal relief for the big banks that turned many moderate voters that had lost everything into supporters for the conservative cause. Unemployment by October reached 11%, and the popularity of the president had remained at the strong percentage points of 17.
It was on this background that the democratic party would nearly implode, being saved only from dissolution as a political force in american politics by a speech by Cheese and the nomination of Hot dog Bun as their presidential candidate, while the republicans took the initiative and selected the Illinois Texan duo of Macaroni and Cheese with Beef Brisket. Macaroni and Brisket proved to be
"everyday americans" slamming Bun and Mustard for their somewhat "rich" lifestyles that were as out of touch as the republican nominees 8 years prior. They would attack the veto of the canola Oil pipeline, the
Moldy Monday crash that loomed like a noose around the president's political aspiration's chances of assisting someone else over the finish line of 270 electoral votes. Bun and Mustard would proudly share their political inexperience, hoping for a moderate majority. Eventually, the strategy would switch to an acknowledgement of their inevitable defeat,just to ensure the majority was as narrow as possible for the republican candidates.
Soon, Election night came with the landslide victory of Macaroni and Cheese. The peaceful transition of power from one political party to another soon became a message that the news anchors would murmur about from both sides of the aisle, with Food News celebrating it with glee and happiness. By contrast, the Cooking News Network would drag out the defeat of their prized candidate, getting in the readiness position for either four or eight years of being the voice of an angry opposition to the president-elect.
