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Arizona Sen. John McCain even takes a maverick approach to humor. At a fundraiser last month, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee saluted an audience packed with Washington insiders as "corrupt, unscrupulous lobbyists who are destroying America as we speak."

His Democratic opponent, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, tends to go for a drier, more self-deprecating approach. On May 30, he made an impromptu trip to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and was asked by reporters if he could see himself on the presidential monument some day.

"I don't think my ears would fit," he replied.

A McCain or Obama presidency may restore at least a measure of jocularity to the White House, after the 16-year drought caused by the largely humor-impaired administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Their legacy consists mainly of unintended punch lines — for example, Clinton's parsing the definition of "is" when talking about his sexual indiscretions, or Bush, who once told a crowd in New Hampshire, "You're working hard to put food on your family."

To be sure, neither McCain, 71, nor Obama, 46, would be likely to rise to the level of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, whose humor became the stuff of anthologies. Kennedy once pretended to quote a telegram from his father that said: "Don't buy more votes than you need. I'm not paying for a landslide." Reagan, asked what he would do about the federal deficit, replied, "I think the deficit's big enough to take care of itself."

McCain often quotes Reagan's remark that "Congress spends money like a drunken sailor" as the setup to a story about an e-mail from an offended voter who wrote, "I'm a former drunken sailor and I resent being compared to Congress."

He also relies on a repertoire of standbys, such as: "It's so dry in Arizona that the trees chase the dogs," or, referring to his service as a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War: "I was able to intercept a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane."

In addition, he can be self-deprecating, such as when, for example, he mocked concerns about his age by describing himself as "older than dirt." A frequent crowd pleaser is the story he likes to tell about the voter who said, "Hey you look a lot like John McCain; has anybody ever told you that?" To which McCain replies yes, and the voter says, "Doesn't that make you mad as heck?"

He often mocks his failed bid for the presidency in 2000 by saying he belongs in a long list of unsuccessful Arizona candidates that includes Dem-ocratic Rep. Mo Udall, in 1976, and former Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, in 1964. The punch line: His is the only state where mothers don't tell their kids they can grow up to be president.

His strongest preference, though, appears to be for provocation. His off-the-cuff sarcasm has at times come back to haunt him: He was criticized last year for singing "Bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann."

"There's a risk with his humor," said Mark Katz, a Washington-based comedy writer who wrote jokes for President Clinton. McCain "is quick-witted, but some of his punch lines keep punching him."

Obama and absurdities

Obama's humor is often aimed at himself and at the small absurdities of his situation as a surprise contender for the White House. Playing a pickup game in April with the basketball team at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, he told a player who apologized for fouling him, "It's OK — the Secret Service won't do anything to you."

He sometimes takes aim at his rock-star status. In April, he told a screaming crowd in Harrisburg, Pa., to "settle down — this is not like 'The Price Is Right.' I'm not going to ask you to come on down."

Like McCain, he has his standard laugh lines, often remarking that the campaign has dragged on so long that "babies have been born and are walking and talking."

Obama also likes to bemoan a study that found he is a distant cousin of Vice President Dick Cheney.

"You're hoping you're relating to somebody cool, you know, like Abraham Lincoln or Willie Mays, or somebody," he said at a campaign event in Iowa City on Jan. 2. "But Dick Cheney — that's a letdown."

In a 2006 speech to the Gridiron Club — a Washington organization of journalists that hosts an annual dinner attended by officials and lawmakers of both parties — Obama, who had served only a year in the Senate, brought down the house with a Kennedyesque performance mocking his meteoric rise to political prominence.

"I've been very blessed," he said. "Keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention; the cover of Newsweek; my book made the best-seller list; I just won a Grammy for reading it on tape; and I've had the chance to speak not once but twice before the Gridiron Club. Really, what else is there to do? Well, I guess I could pass a law or something."