Some folks might have been puzzled by the teenager in the bleach-blond wig being chased by another teen wielding giant cardboard scissors during the Takoma Park Fourth of July Parade on Wednesday morning — but not readers of The Washington Post. They would have recognized this as a spoofy reference to a recent story by Post reporter Jason Horowitz that described how Romney, while a student in prep school, led a group of classmates to forcibly cut the hair of a boy who had let his bleached locks grow a little long for conservative tastes.

The two teens executed their mock chase for much of the parade route, which was a couple miles at least. They were part of a larger group of neighbors identifying themselves as the Sherman Avenue Tea Party Patriots, named for a street in Takoma Park. The display of more than a dozen marchers also included people carrying signs spelling “ROMNEY” that morphed into “R MONEY,” as well as a guy dressed as Newt Gingrich. There was also a car that had a stuffed dog leaning out the window and a person in a cage on the roof — a reference to a story about Romney putting the family hound in a rooftop luggage carrier.