A leaked video shows the new tack urged on presidential candidate Barack Obama in the face of you-know-who-power, racism, and all that.
'Let's face it, Barack,' says P.R. guru Mo Schmoe, mopping his brow, 'middle America you ain't. You're an urban, cosmopolitan, liberal, affluent, black (excuse me) intellectual. So go for it!'
Accordingly, The Spoof follows Obama on walkabout in the U.S. heartland, first meeting a burly fellow who describes himself as 'a member of that emergent and pivotal sociological phenomenon, the white working class'.
'Awesome!' says Obama. 'Now I can tell my friends what one of you looks like. So what's your name?'
'Joseph Sixpack.' (Weary sigh.) 'Yes, it's my real name, which I can trace back to my great-great-great-grandfather Ichabod Sixpack, right down through great-great-grandfather Amos, great-grandfather Hiram, grandfather Henry, and my dad, Elvis Sixpack. And I do find it most vexatious the way commentators and bloggers keep taking my name in vain.'
'Speaking of which,' says a woman who suddenly finds herself pushed face-to-face with the candidate, 'you do acknowledge, don't you, Senator, that our Lord Jesus Christ was sent on earth to deliver us from blasphemers, fornicators, and those who would deny that the world was created in six days?'
'Good God, you don't believe all that rot, do you?' asks Obama.
'Of course she doesn't,' says the questioner's friend, pulling her away. 'She always says things like that when she can't think of any small talk.'
'But you do oppose gay marriage, I hope?' comes a shout from the crowd.
'Absolutely! Marriage is such an archaic, inherently inegalitarian institution - Michelle and I kinda sold out on that one - that the least we can do is confine it to heterosexual couples, instead of letting it spread.'
'What's arugula?' someone else inquires.
Momentarily nonplussed, Obama confesses, 'Damned if I know. A San Francisco voter complained about the price of it, and Mo thinks I ought to mention it from time to time in order to seem even more elitist than I am.'
Our reporter jumps on this. 'So you don't really consider yourself elitist?'
'That depends,' is the measured response. 'Do you mean "consider myself" in my public or private persona? And what's elite in one subculture may not be elite in another. Both factors need to be examined carefully in the light of bla bla bla …'
Will the new strategy work? Joseph Sixpack thinks so, explaining that he's 'tired of politicians acting like beer-swilling yokels to try to identify with me. Little do they know that, even though I hail from Incest, West Virginia, and sell bedpans for a living, in my heart I'm sitting in a café in Alexandria, sipping absinthe and reading Verlaine in the original. Make no mistake,' he insists, 'sophistication is the new black (excuse me), and what a historic breakthrough it will be when we finally see it occupying the White House.'
