CENTREVILLE, Miss. – With the quadrennial national opportunity to vote for people named Clinton and/or Bush right around the corner, a morass of muckrakers, spin doctors and political hired guns are now working round the clock to dig up dirt on the opposition and perform damage control for their own camps.

As the excavation for public humiliation progresses, already pornography has twice reared its not-half-bad-looking, if overly makeup-slathered head.

First, there was the recycled hubbub surrounding former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and state pension funds invested in Movie Gallery — a video chain store that, instead of stocking 37 copies of every movie Charlie Sheen ever made, it stocked copies of about 1 percent of the porn movies Charlie Sheen ever watched.

This isn’t the first time Jeb Bush has caught flak over the investment of state funds in Movie Galley. The American Family Association tried to whip up the ire of social conservatives in 2005, generating a flurry of email from people who were suddenly very concerned about the disposition of Florida’s pension fund, despite not being able to spell or accurately define the term “pension fund.”

At any rate, before voters could decide precisely how little to care about the rehashed Florida pension funds story, a new almost-porn-related scandal hit the news — one that threatens to derail another Republican’s campaign before it even begins.

According to a report in the Tatum Tribune, Jacob Elijah Poindexter, former Mayor of Centreville, Miss., and much-anticipated candidate for the Republican nomination, recently was caught on camera handing what appears to be a $20 bill to a man who looks like he could be Ron Jeremy.

“I’m not saying the other figure in the picture definitely is the legendary ‘hedgehog’ himself, but in the current political climate, you have to question the judgment of a candidate who allows himself to be seen around anyone with that sort of mustache and a significant pot belly,” said Waylon Tucker, the Tribune reporter who broke the story.

While Poindexter has declined to comment on the photo and allegations, Poindexter 2016 spokesman Adelbert Murphree accused Democrats of doing something entirely unintelligible.

“Whut we got heyah is jus’ whut you expec’ from people in poltics got no charactuh,” said Murphree. “It’s them damn Dem’crats, ahm tellin’ ya. Them Dem’crats, they got nuthin o’ they own to talk ’bout, so sho’ nuff they make accazashuns with no proof. Nossuh, no proof a’tall.”

Murphree then made an analogy to six hens and a coyote — or possibly six-guns and peyote.

“We gonna respond in due tahm, all in due tahm, mah friends. Doncha fret none now, ya heyah?” he said.

Poindexter’s local opponents in the Democratic Party quickly jumped on the opportunity to score points against their former mayor.

“Even if it has been conclusively proven the man in the photo is a valet and 31 years younger than Ron Jeremy, the fact is it could have been Ron Jeremy,” said Wilbur Boyd, director of talking real nice for the Amite County Democratic Party.

“This is just another example of why Mr. Poindexter is unfit to serve as our commander in chief,” Boyd added. “Taken in combination with his infamous double-parking in front of the Double Quick on Cherokee St. back in ’97, I’d say he’s got two very serious strikes against him. He’s a man voters simply cannot trust.”

Murphree passionately decried Boyd’s comments, calling them a “buncha hawgwash” and “nuthin’ more signifikin than a cow pissin’ own a rock.”

Voters are divided on what to think about the incident, which locals have taken to calling “Jeremy-Gayte.”

“I must say, even though I’m not sure who this ‘Jon Laramie’ person is, if he was somehow involved in making those awful, sinful, blue movies, I do think it would be better if our nation’s president wasn’t someone who once knowingly interacted with someone who sort of looks like him,” said Emma Palmer-Burns, director of the Woodville Center for Women with Extremely Large Hats. “On the other hand, the man had just finished parking the mayor’s car. Tipping your valet is always the polite thing to do, so I think if the mayor just came out and sincerely apologized for his lapse in judgment, most people would forgive him.”

Other Mississippians aren’t so sure the general public will be as forgiving as Palmer-Burns.

“Remember always the solemn words of Matthew 5:28: ‘he who looks at woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart,’” said Pastor Bryant Marshall of the Coyner Street Baptist Church.

“I think it’s always been pretty well understood by both clergy and lay people this passage also means ‘thou shalt not bestow parking-related gratuities upon those who resemble serial fornicators,’ as well,” Marshall continued. “Sure, we Christians believe in forgiveness, but that will only go so far when you’ve been seen handing money to someone who easily could have been a creepy porn guy and not a mere parking attendant.”

Representatives of the Clinton, Bush, Trump, Sanders, Biden, Chafee, O’Malley, Webb, Bolton, Van Damme, Carson, Christie, Cruz, Seagal, Ehrlich, Everson, Fiorina, Stallone, Gilmore, Huckabee, Van Peebles, Jindal, Kasich, King, Palin, Pataki, Manson, Paul, Pence, Perry, Rubio, Santorum and Walker campaigns declined to comment, while a random guy standing in the general vicinity of the Hattiesburgers for Lindsey Graham headquarters said, “Fuck me, that guy does look a lot like Stan Van Gundy.”*

*Ed: Stand Van Gundy is the head coach of the Detroit Pistons.