Posted by Ye Olde Scribe for LTS readers.

Written by Andy Borowitz

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – In what some fundamentalist preachers are calling a “partial Rapture,” all credible candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination have mysteriously vanished from Earth.

While this seemingly Biblical phenomenon has been developing over the past several months, the disappearance of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels over the weekend confirmed what many apocalyptic prophets had been predicting: a partial Rapture was underway.

For Rev. Harold Camping, the minister who made headlines by predicting that the entire world would end on May 21, the partial Rapture offered some measure of vindication, he said.

“The world really did end, Republican-wise, when Daniels dropped out of the race of May 22,” he said. “So I was only off by one day.”

According to Camping’s prophecy, Republicans with a shot of winning the White House have completely vanished from the face of the Earth while a series of surefire losers have been “left behind,” including Herman Cain, the former chairman of the Godfather’s Pizza chain, who announced his candidacy – significantly, Camping notes – “on May 21.”

As for the Biblical prophecy that those left behind after the Rapture faced “five months of Hell on Earth, Camping said, “That’s a pretty clear reference to what Newt Gingrich has in store.”