Rapping Virgil

By Published by The Editorial Board

Published: August 6, 2008

On the campaign trail, if Virgil Goode isn’t speaking, he’s usually meeting people one-on-one and handing out his trademark pencils.

During the Scottsville Fourth of July parade this year, Goode was doing just that along the route.

For some reason, though, “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” placed Goode inside a silver Hummer plastered with blue Goode signs.

Jon Stewart plays modern politics for laughs and giggles. The issues and the people are real, but Stewart’s spin is always irreverent.

The image of the Hummer Goode was supposed to be riding in was used as an introduction to a segment in which Stewart eventually plays a made-up game, “Rapper or Republican,” with Wyatt Cenac, the show’s “senior political image consultant.”

It’s a funny comedy bit, even if Goode worked the crowd on foot.

“Rappers, Republicans, what’s the difference?” Cenac tells Stewart. “They both love money, they love guns, gay people scare the s*** out of them …”

Goode, for his part, isn’t laughing.

That’s no surprise, since his whole appearance in the comedy sketch was predicated on him doing something that he wasn’t doing — riding in that SUV.

“First of all, I never watch ‘The Jon Stewart Show,’” Goode said. “I didn’t ride in the Hummer. I don’t even know who owned the Hummer.”

Goode accuses Democratic challenger Tom Perriello of being behind his moment on “The Daily Show,” but the Perriello campaign not only denied the charge but even confirmed that Goode worked the parade crowd on foot.

But the incident did uncover a somewhat humorous revelation about Goode — he claimed not to know what a rapper was.

Everybody knows what a rapper is, right? Rap music has been a part of the scene for a quarter century — not as long as Republicans, of course, but the two groups are still fairly easy to tell apart, no matter what some late-night comedians have to say about it.