Here’s a new twist. Picture a Republican politician with humanitarian ethics. Now imagine said unicorn in the corporeal being of Zach Galifianakis, making the most of every effeminate gesture he can muster as small town family man Marty Huggins. When long-term North Carolina Congressman Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) shoots his re-election bid in the foot by leaving a dirty phone message for his latest slut-conquest on the family phone machine, Marty Huggins gets the call-up to run against the dead-duck candidate. Marty’s dad Wade (Brian Cox) is an old-money Southern patriarch who doesn’t care for Marty’s less than manly qualities. Nevertheless, Wade sends his approval-hungry son into the fray of mud-slinging politics.

You couldn’t really call the slapstick shenanigans that transpire between political rivals Cam and Marty high comedy, but plenty of contagious laughs follow just the same. Ferrell’s and Galifianakis’s physical differences alone are enough to make you grin. Their awkward chemistry is a powder keg, one that only comic fireworks can resolve.

A quote from Ross Perot sets the tone. “War has rules, mud-wrestling has rules — politics has no rules”

“The Campaign” makes fun of ethical missteps that American politicians from both sides of the isle seem unable to stop themselves from making. Drunk driving, tweeting nude photos, and public speaking gaffs make for easy comic pickings here.

Although the filmmakers mask the greedy conservative targets of their satire, they let a few cards show. Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow play the Motch brothers, a pair of billionaire string-pullers clearly patterned after the notoriously malevolent Koch brothers whose tactics of political manipulation are examined in Robert Greenwald’s well-received documentary “Koch Brothers Exposed.” The Motch brothers bring in their secret-campaign-weapon Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott) to make over, prep, and supervise Marty’s run for office. The transformation necessarily means that Marty’s beloved pair of Pugs must be switched out for different — more “domestic” — dogs. No Chinese canines are allowed in this white-bread part of the country. McDermott’s black-clad character represents an undercover black-ops methodology of cutthroat politics that Americans take for granted.

Character actor Karen Maruyama steals scenes in a delightfully effective sub-plot supporting role as big daddy Wade’s housekeeper Mrs. Yao. Under Wade’s openly racist insistence, Mrs. Yao speaks in a slang-riddled old Southern accent when she replies to her “masser.” Mrs. Yao knowingly skewers her put-on accent with knee-thick sarcasm that drips like molasses in 110-degree heat. It’s a sub-plot device that would fail in most comedies, but inexplicably works like a charm here.

Director Jay Roach (“Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me”) dovetails escalating zingers, as when Cam Brady habitually misses punching Marty in public, only to connect with things better left unspoken. The situational humor goes gloriously blue before settling on a calming theme of social responsibility, the likes of which America hasn’t seen in years. There’s more to “The Campaign” than just a big old bag of funky, witty satire — but it is that too.

Rated R. 85 mins. (B) (Three Stars – out of five/no halves)

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