It’s been well observed fake news programs such as ‘The Colbert Report’ or ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’ are meant entirely for entertainment purposes. Both Stephen Colbert and Stewart reassure the audience they are just comedians, and it’s all for the laughs.

But political satire is smart, social commentary that can only appeal to a politically aware audience. This audience can appreciate jokes that are an exaggeration of a politician’s worst attributes.

While the programming has been surveyed, researched and dismissed as legitimate news outlets, they hold another, more important function in the political playing field: deciding which politician is better by determining which satire is the least cringe-worthy.

After sweeping the Maryland, Wisconsin and District of Colombia primaries last week, and with Rick Santorum’s announcement Tuesday that he’s out of the campaign, Mitt Romney’s pretty much guaranteed himself the Republican nomination. Even with Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich persistent in continuing their campaigns despite their recent low polling numbers.

But many of the Republican elite still suspect Romney is too moderate of a conservative to succeed against President Barack Obama in the general election. This attitude prompted one of Colbert’s characters – which he’s described as a ‘well intentioned, poorly informed, high status idiot’ – to accept Mitt Romney as his candidate by exclaiming that he’s ‘Settled for it!’

If ‘settling’ is the worst stab satiric writers can throw at Romney, then he’s in pretty good shape. Late-night talk shows and sketch comedies have aired skits portraying Romney as being robotic, nonconfrontational and just plain awkward. Observe the trajectory of the ‘Saturday Night Live’ cold open, with all Romney parodies played by Jason Sudeikis.

Romney as a scandal-free edgeless candidate, which aired Nov. 19.

‘You don’t hear much about me in the news because the other candidates like Herman Cain and Rick Perry are hogging all the headlines with sex scandals and whoops-a-daisies.’

After that, he questions a former female employee of his sexual harassment tendencies, saying, ‘So Debra, did I ever treat you in a way that might ever be considered as sexual harassment to some of those prudes out there?’

Debra, played by Kristen Wiig, responds: ‘You once said I was a sharp dresser.’

‘Uh-oh, over the line!’ exclaims Sudeikis. ‘Man, keep me away from the ladies because I’m a real dog – bark, bark.’

Romney as a robot, which aired Feb. 11.

‘You just caught me in my den, where I’m relaxing and not appearing ill at ease,’ he said, commenting on Newt Gingrich’s trailing poll results at the time. He added, ‘Figure it out, Newt! People just don’t connect with you as a person. Fortunately, that’s not a problem I have.’

On April 8 we see Romney as the awkward everyman.

A parody C-SPAN episode announces, ‘Following his primary victories last Tuesday, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney made campaign stops in a dozen cities across the country, where he claimed to be interested – in things we know he is not interested in.’

If the spoofs portray Romney as an innocent, awkward robot – well, at least we can program a robot not to say stupid sh*t like discounting the separation of church and state.

With Santorum out we can finally look forward to an Obama vs. Romney campaign. We’ll see inexperience vs. robotics, Muslim vs. Mormon, black vs. white. And then whatever satire the comedies will throw our way, too.

Lauren Tousignant is a senior communications and rhetorical studies and writing major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at letousig@syr.edu or followed on Twitter at @lauT1.    

Published on April 11, 2012 at 12:00 pm