The Campaign
“Earlier tonight, Barack Obama had a half-hour television special. Did anybody happen to see it? It’s a lot of money, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t kid yourself. A half-hour, prime-time network television. I mean, it costs a lot of dough. And they say it was the most money spent by a Democrat for a half an hour since Eliot Spitzer.” -David Letterman
“This is exciting. Earlier this evening, Barack Obama’s 30-minute infomercial appeared on three of the major networks. Fox, CBS and NBC. And, of course, NBC was thrilled to be considered a major network. We haven’t had that in years!” -Jay Leno
“And of course, this Barack Obama appearance was historic for our network. Did you know this? This is the first time a black man has appeared on NBC in prime time since Bill Cosby.” -Jay Leno
“Big night of television tonight for Barack Obama. Earlier tonight, Barack Obama aired a half-hour infomercial to attract more voters. Yeah. Yeah, and apparently, if you watched the entire infomercial, Barack threw in a free set of Ginsu knives for you.” -Conan O’Brien
“And while CBS, NBC and Fox were showing the Barack Obama ad, ABC was showing ‘Pushing Daisies,’ which I believe is the name of the McCain ad, if I’m not mistaken.” -Jay Leno
“Do you like John McCain and Sarah Palin together? It’s fun to see them. They remind me of a couple of cruise ship grifters. McCain looks like the old guy taking his secretary to Las Vegas, doesn’t he a little bit?” -David Letterman
“Sarah Palin, she’s running Alaska, and now she’s the vice presidential candidate, and everybody got very excited about the campaign, and she really sort of energized the whole thing. But listen to this, they now say that there may be some friction between John McCain and Sarah Palin. Yeah, and staffers suspected that there was something wrong when McCain started referring to Sarah Palin as ‘that one.'” -David Letterman
“A moment in history. It was on this day in 1846 that the Donner party left for California. You know what happened there. Everything went wrong. They wound up eating each other, kind of like what’s going on in the McCain campaign right now. Although the press continues to say there are problems between John McCain and Sarah Palin, today Palin denied there was any dissension between her and McCain. And she said she’s also agreed to keep him on the ticket, so I don’t know.” -Jay Leno
“I tell you, though, not looking good for McCain. Not looking good. In fact, today he went down to IKEA, because I think he realized this could be his only chance to put together his own cabinet.” -Jay Leno
“During a speech earlier today, Barack Obama accidentally mixed up his black sitcom characters. He said that Wheezy from ‘The Jeffersons’ was a character on ‘Sanford and Son.’ That’s true, yeah. And just like that, folks, the election is wide open.” -Conan O’Brien
“Think about it. Just six days from today, we’ll know for sure exactly which candidate will be suing the other for voter fraud.” -Jay Leno
Politics
“Yesterday, in Washington, I don’t know if you heard about this, the Secret Service arrested a man who climbed over the White House fence. True story, yeah. Yeah, the Secret Service told the man, ‘Get back here, Mr. President. You have two more months.'” -Conan O’Brien
“And President Bush [is] preparing to leave the White House. That’s a big job after eight years, of course. Of course, on the bright side, not a lot of books to pack up.” -Jay Leno
“Alaska’s Senator Ted Stevens has been found guilty on all seven felony counts of accepting over $250,000 worth of gifts and services from a contractor. But he says he will not step down and he will win re-election. Don’t you love how these guys have no shame? In fact, have you heard his new slogan, ‘Vote for Stevens, a man of convictions.'” -Jay Leno
“A Massachusetts Democratic state senator named Dianne Wilkerson has been arrested for accepting $23,000 in bribes. She was going to use the money for her re-election campaign. And the FBI has actual pictures of her stuffing the $23,000 in her bra. … Isn’t that great? Talk about putting together a campaign war chest.” -Jay Leno
