BATON ROUGE, LA – In front of a crowd of amused reporters on Wednesday, the GOP continued its quadrennial tradition of pardoning one candidate for president from having to continue mounting a bid for the White House. “Don’t worry, there are more than enough of these guys still around for everyone to enjoy. You are hereby pardoned from having to pretend you want to do this anymore. Congratulations and God bless,” said GOP Chairman Reince Preibus to a squirming red-state governor, still squawking out parts of his stump speech as a chuckling press corps snapped photos. GOP spokeswoman Amanda Cox expounded on the symbolic importance of the tradition, noting “This is the point in the year when we can take some time to show our gratitude, and sparing one of these little guys from their less than ideal fate is a great way to go about that.” At press time, Democratic party leaders released a statement that they are only taking one turkey seriously this year and, in response, will pardon all of the other turkeys soon.