Robert Ferrigno’s heartrending vignette of Bill Clinton at the end of President Obama’s first term was full of nice touches. Peter Robinson liked the “I’m Sorry” buttons, but I was tickled by the notion of Clinton being appointed “Ambassador to the Heartland”.

Just so. As we’ve learned in recent days, large swathes of America are as culturally remote and foreign to the Obamas as any distant Wackistan in Central Asia. So why not appoint an ambassador to this strange and turbulent land?

Given the novelty of the Obama candidacy, it requires a perverse genius to have transformed him into just another Kerry-Gore figure – an inauthentic candidate who has to be careful not to give the game away before the media can drag him across the finish line.