How fauxthentic is it?

The beaverish and not unalluring John Edwards recently kicked off his presidential campaign with a series of "webisodes," long-form campaign commercials posted on the Internets . In webisode one, we read, "Senator Edwards talks about remaining authentic in the political world."

During the artfully scripted "behind the scenes" video, Edwards appears in an open-neck gingham shirt and blue jeans, complaining about the falseness of political life. "I've come to the personal conclusion that I want the country to see who I really am," he says. "I'd rather be successful or unsuccessful based on who I really am, not based on some plastic Ken doll that you put up in front of audiences. That's not me."

And so begins Campaign 2008: The quest for fauxthenticity.

Fauxthenticity is fake authenticity that feels, like, really genuine. Like John Edwards just kicking back on his private jet, complaining about his high-priced campaign consultants. Fauxthenticity works better than authenticity. Just ask Arizona Senator John McCain, who used to be famous for unvarnished speech. He has called journalists "liars" and "idiots" -- no foul there -- and once used a racial slur to describe his former North Vietnamese captors, which likewise seems like an in-bounds play to me, coming from a former POW.

But lately, McCain has been trimming his sails, choosing his words carefully while courting the Republican right. That prompted "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart to inquire: "Has the Straight Talk Express been re-routed through [ bad word here] Town?" And it would be a shame if McCain became just another fauxthentic candidate. We have plenty already.

Did someone mention Barack Obama? The guy is drowning in authenticity. He's Kenyan! (Sort of.) He took drugs! (Sort of.) He even boasts what the New Republic has called the "tactically perfect vice." He smokes! It doesn't get any realer than that.

"Obama is not the only smoker to gain authenticity points by copping to this most déclassé of American vices," the magazine observes. "News that Laura Bush was a smoker -- and speculation that she still puffs away while immersed in the occasional Dostoyevsky tome -- is a staple of the glowing press coverage that celebrates the first lady's uncalculated, unpretentious, unpolitical style."

That's what every politician needs, a small, innocuous flaw that Virgil Sixpack and Virginia Slim can identify with. Bill Clinton was a Level 3 Fauxthentic Master, interrupting his White House jogs for an en route Double Whopper, the cardiac consequences be damned. People can relate to overeating. I'm glad to see Al Gore off his ruinous 2000 campaign diet and puffing out a little bit. This is who you are, Al. Not for nothing are you called Al Gore Jr. Like your dad, you're a fat, canny pol from Tennessee, and I intend it as a compliment.

By way of testing our sense of humor, another Sta-Puft "son of" is running for president, late Connecticut senator Thomas Dodd's son Chris. Dodd has shown some flashes of authenticity over the years. He used to be married to a writer. That takes guts. When they were both unattached, he and Senator Edward Kennedy were legendary Washington, D.C., hell-raisers. While Dodd once boasted of dating Bianca Jagger, "he's less comfortable with that image, now that he wants to be presidential," says Hartford Courant columnist Colin McEnroe.

Still, the authentic ones can be the scariest. Mitt Romney is, say, 78 percent authentic, which is quite high for a politician. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he's careful with caffeine, and I doubt that impressionable grade-schoolers will hear purple epithets flowing from his lips. Of course, as a Harvard Business School graduate, he is authentically unprincipled. Case in point: The gay people? Mitt cozied up to them in 1994 , when he was running against Teddy. Now? Not so much.

Our old friend John Kerry remains the most authentically tormented presidential candidate around. He's spent a lifetime running headlong from what he really is: a decent, ambitious, preppy Ivy Leaguer with a laudable record of public service. In 2004 , he morphed into NASCAR John, so eager to pose with a cam o jacket and hunting rifle that you half-expected to see Dick Cheney holding his grouse bag.

Then there was the wholly fauxthentic, Swift boat "band of brothers" thing that got started at the Democratic National Convention. That didn't turn out so well.

John Edwards, you've been warned.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist.His e-dress is beam@globe.com.