What's so funny? The candidates' risky use of humor

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USA Today: What's so funny?
The 2008 contenders are using jokes to score points. They hope you're laughing.
By Jill Lawrence
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Did you hear the one about the presidential candidates trying to be funny?

Spurred by a crowded 18-person field and new avenues such as YouTube, White House wannabes increasingly are turning to humor. Used well, it can help them stand out, score points and boost that all-important likability quotient. Almost anything is fair game these days for a quip or video, including spouses, rivals, weight, age, haircuts, attire and even religion.

What do you pray for? Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, at a forum on faith: "Oh Lord, why can't you help me lose weight?" How long did God take to create the world? Republican Mike Huckabee, at a debate: "I don't know. I wasn't there."

"Humor is the great underutilized strategic tool," says Mark Katz, who wrote humorous material for Bill Clinton and Al Gore and now runs The Sound Bite Institute, a creative think tank. "You can say things using humor that otherwise never get said. It smartens up a message."

That's assuming candidates can get it right. "Every time you get up to do humor it's a risk. Going to the line is what makes it funny — but you don't know where the line is, says Landon Parvin, who has written humor for Ronald Reagan and the current President Bush.

Humor carries special risk in a campaign playing out against the painful, unpopular war in Iraq. "You want to be careful not to joke too much lest you be accused of not taking things seriously enough," says John Schacter, a humor writer for politicians in both parties....

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070725/1a_prezhumorxx.art.htm