For one night, the slugfest became a jest fest.
Barack Obama and John McCain skewered each other with humor at last night’s power-packed Alfred E. Smith charity dinner at the Waldorf.
The 63rd annual fund-raiser – the year’s most glittering gathering of New York’s power elite – raised $4 million for Catholic charities.
And it gave the movers and shakers of the political and media worlds a chance to preen in their white ties and tails, gowns and jewels while feasting on the juicy roast.
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For the second night in a row, “Joe the Plumber” got some pretty good lines.
“It’s true I dismissed the entire team of senior advisers,” McCain deadpanned, saying they will all be “replaced by a man called Joe the Plumber.”
He noted the most famous unlicensed plumber from Ohio was being criticized by Democrats as someone who “could not possibly have enough income to face a tax increase under the Obama plan.”
“What they don’t know is that Joe the Plumber recently signed a very lucrative contract with a wealthy couple to handle all the work on all seven of their houses,” he said, jokingly referring to his own properties.
For his part, Obama got a lot of mileage from campaign slams – and himself.
“John’s been asking: Who is Barack Obama?” he said.
“Barack is actually Swahili for ‘That One’ ” – a dig at how McCain referred to Obama during the second presidential debate.
Obama continued, “I got my middle name [Hussein] from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d run for president . . . If I had to name my greatest strength, it would be my humility; my greatest weakness, perhaps a little too awesome.”
One of the sharpest pokes from Obama was aimed at Rudy Giuliani, who was traveling in Europe.
“I’ve never put lipstick on a pig, pit bull or myself,” he said. “Rudy Giuliani, that’s one for you. Who’d have thought a cross-dressing former mayor of New York City would have a tough time winning the Republican primary? That was a tough primary you had there, John.”
Giuliani wasn’t invited to the see-and-be-seen event, and Archdiocese of New York officials didn’t say why. But Edward Cardinal Egan has warred publicly with the former mayor.
A multitiered dais showed off the cream of New York’s power elite, including Gov. Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, former Mayors David Dinkins and Ed Koch, and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
Also prominent on the dais were New Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, CBS anchor Katie Couric and NBC anchor Brian Williams.
The widow and son of the late Tim Russert of NBC attended, and were publicly honored by both Obama and dinner host Al Smith IV, the great-grandson of the legendary New York politician.
The press didn’t get off scot-free.
“Chris Matthews . . . he used to like me,” McCain said, joking that the MSNBC host had called him “somebody who gave him a thrill up his leg.”
“Maverick, I can do, but messiah is above my pay grade.”
Obama landed one on the chairman of News Corp., which owns The Post:
“Murdoch, Fox News, accused me of fathering two African-American children in wedlock,” he said.
McCain and Obama each closed by complimenting his rival.
McCain praised Obama for his “great skill, energy, and determination. It’s not for nothing that he’s inspired so many folks in his own party and beyond.
“I can’t wish my opponent luck, but I do wish him well.”
Obama said few Americans had served their country with “the same honor and distinction” as McCain, a former Navy pilot who was a prisoner of war for more than five years in Vietnam.
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