Howdy cynics! It’s Matt Kent again and today is April 2^nd. In case you didn’t realize it, yesterday was April Fool’s Day. This of course means at some point yesterday, you were pranked. Oh, you didn’t notice it? It was just like any other day? You should probably rethink your day then, because you almost certainly got played. Just consider:

• Remember that kindly old lady who needed help crossing the street? That was Johnny Knoxville.
• That three car pileup on the way home from work? That has Ashton Kutcher written all over it.
• That voicemail you got from your sister? That was Rick Astley. How did you not realize it when you got Rick Roll’d?
• That Nigerian prince who needed your bank information? Incredibly, it was actually a Nigerian prince! I’m rich!

Oddly enough, the April first festivities reached all the way to the presidential campaign. Join me after the jump for a closer look.

To mark the silliness of the holiday, Hillary Clinton challenged Barack Obama to a bowl-off for the Democratic nomination, Burning Man announced John McCain’s attendance at this summer’s festival, and Ron Paul continued his campaign unabated.

Upon further inspection, maybe the McCain at Burning Man story is more than a joke. It fits seamlessly into his recent push towards the youth vote. We’re all familiar with his daughter’s work as a Blogette and his appearance on MTV and MySpace’s Presidential Dialogue series.

What you may not be familiar with is his campaign’s new “I’m Nuts for John Walnuts McCain” youth outreach program. Seeking to use his infamous “walnut cheeks” to connect with young voters, the McCain campaign has dispatched 13 year old Evan Ryan as a youth surrogate. McCain’s staffers even got one of their grandkids to make them one of those newfangled “Facebook Groups” for the program.

Probably the saddest/funniest part about McCain’s exploitation of 13 year old Evan is his apparent inability to answer reporters’ questions with walnuts in his cheeks. Shame.