(Satire, but wouldn't it be nice if this came true?)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Three student activists stood outside Capitol Hill on Friday wearing masks of GOP Congressmen John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Roy Blunt and holding signs that read, "Will stop voting 'no' for food."
The students — Georgetown University law school students Mary Pickfair, George Worthman and Cabot Andrews, respectively — also gave passers-by the opportunity to have their pictures taken with the posers for a $5 donation, to be split between a local soup kitchen and a local domestic violence shelter.
"For just the price of your commute in to work, you can have your picture taken with three of the most powerful 'No' votes in the House of Representatives," Pickfair said while masked as Boehner, who represents Ohio's eighth district.
"And you can," she said, feigning crying as she turned Boehner's "waterworks," as she put it, "really ... help out a good cause ... in this time of great national uncertainty!"
The activists said they would be donating net proceeds from their event to those two community organizations, which they said they had selected "at random. We just picked two out of the phone book, and that was it," Worthman said.
But the real surprise came when members of the House and Senate, having heard about the fundraiser from an aide, stopped by to have their pictures taken with the imposters.
"Sometimes you just have to go with the flow," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., "especially if it involves someone pretending to be crying like Rep. Boehner."
Schumer said he "absolutely" paid to have his picture taken with the three masked activists and would be using the shot in a fundraiser. "It's for a good cause, it's funny and they definitely know their politics. I told them that when they're done with law school, they should come by my office if they're looking for work. This is a really unique statement they're making. It's funny. I like funny."
Also liking funny, apparently, were the entire Democratic caucuses of the House and Senate, several Republican lawmakers and quite a few Cabinet and lower-level officials, including Arne Duncan, secretary of education, who asked "Boehner," "Cantor" and "Blunt" how they would improve America's failing schools.
"Well, first, cut the capital gains tax," said the fake Cantor. "Cut the capital gains tax, the payroll tax, get rid of the incredibly stifling regulation system keeping working men and women from making a living on Wall Street. You put money back in the hands of real Americans, not the politicians in Wall Street, and then that's money that those Americans can spend on educating their children the way they see fit, not the way some bureaucrats think it should be done."
Duncan then argued that cutting taxes would be counterproductive, since "schools are funded through property taxes, so cutting them would reduce the funds available to build and improve schools, hire teachers, keep school buildings clean and pay for new textbooks."
"New textbooks filled with liberal lies like about homosexual so-called 'marriage,'" the fake Blunt argued, using air quotes, "and also about climate change and stem cell research. It's all a bunch of liberal Democrat Party propaganda. That's why people aren't voting Republican anymore. It's not the party but the politics in school books. If we would just leave the education to the parents, we wouldn't have all these problems."
Pickfair, Andrews and Worthman said they had brought a list with them of the entire House, Senate and Cabinet and that they were checking off politicians "as they show up." When they stopped the effort, at 6 p.m., they said they had gotten donations from "hundreds."
"It was a really positive response," a masked Pickfair said as she turned Boehner's tears on again. "We got hundreds of them involved in this effort. And soon we're going to stand by the Rosslyn Metro station and keep going until rush hour is over."
Pickfair wouldn't say who didn't show. "Maybe some people were out sick or something. Maybe they didn't hear about it. What I care about is we raised more than $1,000 and collected a lot of nonperishable food, which we'll have a representative from the food bank collect here in about half an hour. So that was a really good day for us. Maybe we'll come back later this year, once the novelty has worn off, and do it again."
For their parts, the actual Blunt, Cantor and Boehner did come to the three near the end of the work day to have their pictures taken with them, and the House minority leader said he thought the whole situation was "a riot."
"We take ourselves seriously a lot of the time," Minority Whip Cantor added, "but here these young people are doing something for the community, and their masks were really original, so we thought, 'Why not go down and check it out?'"
Andrews said the three congressmen and the three students started talking tax cuts, and "we just kept upping the ante, inventing taxes that we should cut or levy.
"I suggested a tax on fake tans, and Boehner was all, 'Well, actually, I think we should tax people who are very pale, because tanning products have a stimulating effect on the economy, whereas people who are pale aren't participating in the economy.'"
Andrews said the three congressmen posed for a group shot with the students and that each of the three then posed for a shot with the three students -- all of them masked.
"The funny part was when Boehner wanted to take a picture of Mary with her mask off and him with her Boehner mask on. She was all, 'But then nobody will know it's you!' and he started to get emotional ... or he was faking it. I'm frankly not sure he wasn't actually kind of torn up about it."
The activists also plan to conduct the fundraiser in other cities later this month and in August, and they're taking donations to help defray the cost of gas, food and lodgings.
"Anyone anywhere who'd like to put us up for the night in whatever city with a big public transportation system, we're there. We'd love for (Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas) to put us up in San Francisco so we can get our picture taken with the governor -- for just $5 a shot."