The Schmidt-Palin campaign is unleashing front man John McCain from the heavily-scripted, tightly-disciplined message that had come to characterize the campaign in recent weeks.

In the first of several three-minute ad buys that will run in battleground states, John McCain will talk directly to the camera and rant Crazy-Uncle style about the Illinois Senator, Barack Obama.

Abandoning subtle jabs at Obama’s race, patriotism, religion and manhood, the Republican nominee is expected to henceforth, “call a spade a spade,” according to the intern who was responsible for making the tequila run prior to the taping of the spots.

While a transcript was not immediately available, sources present during the taping suggest that the Arizona Senator relied on hyphenated descriptions of the first African-American nominee for President and “lots of run-on sentences” in contrasting his own ethnicity and Christian heritage against that of his half-white, half-black opponent.

Once know for his Straight Talk, John McCain has more recently been attacked for being crotchety, confused, border-line demented and exceedingly rich.

In a daring act of political jujitsu, McCain apparently will see those charges and raise them – agreeing with Senator Obama that while there are neither Red states nor Blue states, there are 50 white ones – noting – one by one - each of the stars on the American flag that provided a backdrop for his talk.

“Truly, John McCain speaks for all of us who believe that the American people are fundamentally decent, hard-working folk who don’t want a black man to be President and who think the French suck,” said campaign strategist Steve Schmidt.

Schmidt, who went on to curse out gays, foreigners, and uppity Negroes, in general, and Michelle Obama in particular, also agreed that, yes, “technically” he (Schmidt) was not the GOP’s nominee for the country’s highest office, before adding that just because the checks said “John McCain” on them didn’t mean that they weren’t being deposited in the bank account that said “Steve Schmidt.”

Asked if he thought the tone of the campaign had gotten excessively nasty or personal in recent weeks, Schmidt seemed momentarily to get misty-eyed. 

“You don’t get it, do you? … You have no clue how close white people are from being toppled from power, do you? Do you?”

Turning to his Vice Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, who had just recorded a personal best two minutes without blinking, Schmidt observed:

“See what we’re up against? … If these aren’t the end times, then what are?”

Governor Palin offered up an ‘amen’ while applying drops of Visine to her bloodshot eyes.

The Official John McCain VP Vetting Questionnaire – Short Form

To see if you qualify to use this form:

Are you Mitt Romney?  Yes   No

If yes, sorry, you’ll need to complete the Long Form.

Reminder to Long Form Respondents:
Please refer to the document production manual that was included with your Official VP Vetting Binder for more instructions – paying particular attention to the requests for proper alignment/positioning of the paper clip when submitting documents in excess of one page.

If no, proceed.

Welcome my friend to the VP Vetting Process. I have asked you to participate in this process because I truly believe you are the next generation of leadership in the Republican Party and in America.  Cindy and I look forward to getting to know you in the coming hours as we begin this truly important journey together. 

1.     To the best of your recollection, have I ever threatened, maligned, collared, hit, or hit on you?

        If yes, please describe, indicating also whether you’d be open to more of the same.

2.    Are you Jewish and/or from the northeast?

3.    Force-rank the following:

4.    Which statement typifies your economic views:

5.    Are you a terrorist?

6.    You sure about that?

7.    After having a few too many beers at night, ever get the urge to grab a stick, saunter into town and play whack a mole?  Ever done that with an A4 Skyhawk, an armored personnel carrier or a fast inshore attack craft?

8.    Say Cindy and I were having a BBQ at one of our houses, who would you bring along as your guest(s):

9.    You don’t got a thing for Congressional pages, tap dancing in urinals or bilking Indian reservations, right?
10.    On the other hand, sometimes it helps to have a ‘handle’ – take me, for example I’m a Maverick. What are you?

11.    Take your right hand up in front of your eyes. Snap. Did you blink?
12.    Snap twice. Three times. Four times, as loud and as fast as you can and then shout HAH! How about now: any blinking yet?