DES MOINES, IOWA — Officials in the Republican and Democratic National Committees held a joint press conference Tuesday, announcing that a sudden death penalty kick round will now be held to determine if Mike Huckabee (R) and Martin O’Malley (D) are eligible to go home, or if they must continue to campaign in perpetuity, siphoning billions of dollars from the economy and into the political class.

“We know that Huck and Mr. O’Malley probably just want to go home now,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus told reporters, “but we also already rented the soccer field so we might as well have them go through the penalty kick round anyway.”

Priebus said that the format of the sudden death penalty kick round will be simple. Each contestant will get at least one kick on goal. O’Malley will be the goal tender for Huckabee and then that will reverse when it’s the former Maryland governor’s turn to take shots on goal. After each of them get their first kicks in, the first person to miss after their opponent scores a goal loses. Mr. Priebus said that the loser will also be forced to carry the loser’s gym bag off the field, and has to stand on one foot yelling, “Wooba! Wooba! Wooba!” for twenty minutes.

“Of course, we’d like for Hillary Clinton to be in the shoot out,” DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the press, “but if it has to be one of the other guys, that’s fine too. As long as Hillary is mentioned at least fifteen times per minute, the DNC will be quite pleased with whatever the outcome of the penalty kick shoot out is.”

Reached for comment, Mr. Huckabee said through a campaign staffer that he is ready for the shoot out and that he knows “the hand of God will guide his foot.” O’Malley’s campaign released a statement saying they were “pleased to get another chance for people to ask themselves a very important question, ‘Who the hell is that guy?‘”

“There’s just simply far too much money wrapped up in these campaigns for us to just let any candidate drop out,” Wasserman Schultz said, “and since our voters are clearly okay with meaningless dog and pony shows like our debates, we figured why not give the plebs a little more vapid entertainment, and we’re quite proud of ourselves for what we came up with. You all should be too. Be proud of us, now.”