"I'm delighted to be with you," Sen. Arlen Specter told a crowd outside Pittsburgh last night. "After being at town meetings, I'd be delighted to be anywhere."
Rim shot, please.
Pennsylvania's senior U.S. senator headlined a comedy show at the Improv in Homestead, Pa., to raise money for Allegheny County's Music Festival Fund for children.
He drew loud laughs several times.
Like his political remarks, though, the material was well tested.
Actually, much of it was recycled, almost word for word, from a 2007 celebrity contest at the Washington, D.C., Improv. (He finished second, behind a guy from the satirical newspaper, the Onion.)
It's one thing to switch political parties - Specter's running in the Democratic primary against Rep. Joe Sestak - but why stray from joshing about Bob Dole, the president candidate who turned Viagra pitchman?
Specter said he called up Dole on his birthday once and asked how the (then-) fellow Republican was doing.
Dole said: "I feel like a teenager. The problem is I can't find one."
Dole told his wife, Elizabeth (herself a powerhouse politico), that "I just shaved and I feel 10 years younger."
She scowled and said, Specter quipped: "Why didn't you shave last night?"
(Contrary to one report, Specter did not joke he said this to his own wife.)
And when Bob groused about Viagra costing $10 a pill, she countered, "You can afford $40 a year, Bob."
North Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond once told Specter about having relations with his young beauty queen wife: "I have sex almost every night. We almost have sex on Monday. We almost have sex on Tuesday ..."
Specter even revived his joke about Hurricane Katrina destroying Sen. Trent Lott's library: "Both books." Pause. "And he wasn't finished coloring one of them either."
Last night's event raised about $32,000 for the charity.
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