"And we'd have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those blasted kids!"

Grant McCracken points to a very relevant source of political and anthropological insight — The Onion:

But I think things are a little different in the world of politics. Here, the real sophistication of the under-35 voter means that you really have to watch it, and when you don't, this voter will make you pay.

Hence the article today in The Onion. This captures precisely the sensibility of the under-35 vote quite precisely. (With the proviso that The Onion is necessarily a little more observant and unforgiving.) In this wonderful piece, The Onion nails the Obama camp for its artifice in image building. Look, it says with glee, we see what you're doing. And it's precisely because you appear to think we cannot see the artifice here that we must point it out and make you pay. Play us if you must, but don't play us for fools.

The entire piece is worth reading [. . .] but if I may let me quote my favorite passage.

Obama has reportedly been working tirelessly with his top political strategists to perfect his looking-off-into-the-future pose, which many believe is vital to the success of the Illinois senator's campaign.

When performed correctly, the pose involves Obama standing upright with his back arched and his chest thrust out, his shoulders positioned 1.3 feet apart and opened slightly at a 14-degree angle, and his eyes transfixed on a predetermined point between 500 and 600 yards away. Advisers say this creates the illusion that Obama is looking forward to a bright future, while the downturned corners of his lips indicate that he acknowledges the problems of the present.

Oh, sublime. So much of politics is an exercise is posturing (figurative and here literal) that it is hard to image what politics can look like once the new voter is factored in. In the meantime, we leave it to the likes of The Onion, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart to point out to the would-be emperors that we can see right through that clothing they don't have on.