Funny Business With the Candidates

There is some charity deal (why do charity deals always involve tuxes and expensive meals?) where both of the candidates get up and try to crack jokes. It looks like the idea behind it is a roast of sorts. Perhaps a chance for both candidates to make fun of themselves and lighten the mood a little bit. There must be a TON of money in the room for two people who will stop at nothing to win the presidency crack jokes at their own expense.

Why did everyone after the debates last night say the two candidates won't meet face to face until the election? This charity soiree has been going on for 60 some years. And it had to be on both of their schedules. The "news" dropped the ball, but I bet the Guardian was on it.

Barack Obama sucked, sucked, sucked! McCain cut me up. Examples of each.



That was pretty funny up until the last minute or so. Let's see Barack. In this clip, he's introduced by Rachel Maddow of CNBC (where did she come from?).



Uh, he stunk. McCain mostly made fun of himself. Obama was pretty much bringing attention to Obama. Seriously, couldn't Obama get Jon Stewart to write some jokes? That Yankee Stadium joke was terrible and the greek column joke bombed.

CNN showed more, and Obama sucked more. There was a terrible, repeat terrible, cross-dressing joke about Rudy Guiliani. I don't like Guiliani very much, but that was a little too much. Obama espounds about Tim Russert, which was very, very odd for this format and audience. Then he pounces into something of a stump speech. So much for politics as usual.

Considering the crowd (probably Democrats from New York (the AIG joke didn't go over very well)), McCain had a much better response, hands down. There was a lot of untimely laughter for McCain, which was akward, but his joke writer was fantastic. The joke about "Joe the plumber" working for a wealthy couple on all their seven houses was great. Everything McCain said was deferential. The Hillary joke was great, even if his timing was off. It showed that the McCain campaign watches the news and the opinion columns.

I loved the quip about strict-constructionists. That's heady. Pretty much from there on out, he lost me.

The youtube clip cuts out a great line by McCain about ACORN. McCain's closing remarks were cut out as well, which is unfortunate. CNN showed a the entirety of McCain's speech and it was fantastic. He was incredibly deferential to Obama, basically saying that the fact he is black and running for president is a testiment to the greatness to our country. McCain was very gracious to his opponent, stating that he can't wish Obama luck, but can wish him well. It was really great to hear a candidate speak about the historical ramifications of a (half) black president.

Watching both in their entirety, I wouldn't be able to tell that the crowd was leaning Democrat.