Welcome to the show you guys. We love "The Daily Show." We're thrilled to have you here.

ROCCA: Thank you, Bobbie.

BATTISTA: You all look so serious in your suits.

CARELL: We're very serious.

BATTISTA: I'm telling you. I'm impressed.

CARELL: I tied this tie myself.

DEGENERES: I can vouch for that.

BATTISTA: I'm curious to know what the reaction is of the candidates when you're buzzing around them with these degenerate questions.

DEGENERES: You know, they're surprisingly OK with it, and we really had no idea if we'd get access or not to the candidates when we first went up to New Hampshire to cover the debates, but they've been surprisingly helpful to us, I think.

ROCCA: We're gadflies, but we're lovable gadflies. It's a fine line between being a gadfly and being a darling of the media, and we're trying to walk that fine line, get what we want, but still be irreverent.

DEGENERES: I'll tell you, I think the thing that really helped us out was when we when we first went to New Hampshire and grabbed Senator McCain when he was going into the debate, and we asked him if he liked our jackets, and he seemed to take a liking to us, and from there on out, it was clear sailing.

ROCCA: And Steve was on the bus with him the next day.

CARELL: Then I spent the day on the bus.

BATTISTA: I want to get back to that in just a second, but you guys, you say you're gadflies, so this makes me wonder what the rest of the political press corps thinks of you.

CARELL: Actually, they like us a lot. I think we add a sense of adventure to the whole proceeding. I think they welcome our presence, because we get there, and the questions have been asked time and time again, and we come in and will ask questions, like Vance asked a question of Forbes which was...

DEGENERES: Right. I asked Steve Forbes at the press conference after the debate, "Mr. Forbes, are you wealthy enough to relocate enough voters to New Hampshire to swing the election in your favor? He kind of gave me that non-blinking hypnotizing state that he's got, and I think hoping to hypnotize me into asking another question, but I didn't. I stuck to it, and he gave some kind of politicalspeak answer, some kind of gobbledygook and nonsense.

BATTISTA: Have you ever gotten a negative reaction, or been told to just back offer or worse?

ROCCA: Well, yesterday -- or Monday, in fact I was at a Bradley rally, and I asked him for a hug. It's a long story. Part of it has to do with the piece, part of it has to do with my own self-esteem, but I really wanted a hug from him. and oddly enough he just looked at me blankly and walked on, and one security guys jabbed me in the chest with his elbow and I bruise like a grape, so it was dramatic.

DEGENERES: But you know, Mo, to be fair to Senator Bradley, Mo should have been wearing pants at the time.

(LAUGHTER)

BATTISTA: Let me go Rudy in the audience.

RUDY: I was wondering, since the candidates know that you're sort of irreverent, as you say, if you find them to be funnier if they're really bland, or do they have a sense of humor?

CARELL: No, you know what, they're the funniest when they're not in on the joke. When they start trying to be funny, as witnessed when Mo talked to George Bush a few weeks ago at a bowling photo-op. He did all of these bowling puns that were so bad. So it's generally funnier for us if they're not funny and we can, you know, shoot fish in a barrel.

BATTISTA: Who does have the best sense of humor? Who plays with you? McCain?

DEGENERES: McCain.

(CROSSTALK)

DEGENERES: He plays the most.

Yes, hands down it's Senator John McCain, and it's a sad, sad day for us today. I mean, well, he hasn't dropped out yet, but it's looking grim.

ROCCA: But by the same token, it's nice that Gore doesn't seem to have a sense of humor, because it's a nice challenge for us. Our job is cut out for us.

BATTISTA: Is that -- now I've heard that up close and personal, he actually does have a sense of humor, so it's going to be up to you guys to dig that out, don't you think?

DEGENERES: Right. Well, I'll tell you what, you know, you're right, and we're sworn to -- if anybody can dig it out, I think that we can, although we have not had any access to Vice President Gore as of yet. He's dodged us at every instance.

BATTISTA: He is afraid of you.

DEGENERES: He is afraid of us.

BATTISTA: All right, so tell us about the day on the bus. Who spent the day on the on the bus with who? John McCain?

CARELL: I spent the day on the bus with McCain, and he's a great guy. He was very charming. He was very sweet, quite lovable, very personable, but you got the sense at any given moment, he could just reach out and crush your head like a walnut.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: Yes, I know, he's definitely a warrior, and I'm convinced that he will be the next leader of the breakaway republic of New England. It's a political joke about New England.

BATTISTA: Let me throw some things at you, because Frank Luntz, of the Luntz Research Company, which is a polling company...

CARELL: Oh, of course, yes, Frank Luntz.

BATTISTA: You know, Frank, right? OK.

CARELL: Oh yes, Frank Luntz, yes.

BATTISTA: He sent out this poll to 800 likely voters, and it was actually done in all seriousness, and I'm sure he had his reasons for asking these particular questions on this poll. On this poll, there were questions of this nature, like one of them was, "If you had to choose which of the four candidates do you think had the most problems getting a date to their senior prom?"

DEGENERES: Well, personally, I would think that would have been probably Gary Bauer.

ROCCA: Well, yes, if he can't stay on stage flipping a pancake, he's probably not a very good dancer.

CARELL: But if we're talking about the four candidates...

ROCCA: Oh, the four.

DEGENERES: The current candidates.

CARELL: We're talking the current four.

BATTISTA: Yes, current four.

ROCCA: Who had the hardest time.

DEGENERES: OK. I will -- I will -- OK. Then I'll revise that. I'll say Alan Keyes.

(LAUGHTER)

Keyes seems to have a hard time getting to the point. You ask him a question, and he pontificates and goes on. He's very eloquent, but he goes on and on.

So if he called up a girl to ask for a date, he might have been talking for hours before asking her.

ROCCA: I consider -- I think Alan Keyes is incredibly persuasive, and I think we should point out that Alan Keyes does have one delegate. And if that delegate is persuasive enough, as persuasive as Alan Keyes, he could turn Philadelphia upside down, and we could, you know, have a whole (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

(LAUGHTER)

BATTISTA: You guys, we've got to -- hold on. We've got -- the audience just loved that one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's that, Bobbie?

BATTISTA: The audience loved that one. We have to take a break. As we do, I'll ask you the second -- another question off this poll so you can think about during the break. Which of the four candidates would you -- would you be most likely to use as a lifeline if you were on the TV show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"? We'll be back in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROCCA: Here, Senator McCain, Mo Rocca of "The Daily Show With John Stewart." I have a foreign affairs question from the millennial edition of Trivial Pursuit.

(LAUGHTER)

Who became the hottest pop star to come out of Iceland in the mid-1990s?

(LAUGHTER)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To come out of Iceland?

ROCCA: Out of Iceland, that's right. The hottest pop star.

DEGENERES: Iceland.

ROCCA: Don't dodge the question.

DEGENERES: What do you have against Iceland, senator?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: All right. We've got our own set of questions here for the three correspondents from "The Daily Show." OK, guys, you've had time to think about this one. Which of the four candidates would you be most likely to use as a lifeline if you were on the TV show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"?

DEGENERES: I vote for Alan Keyes hands down. Hands down. Steve?

CARELL: I would have to say George W. Bush just because I think it's really funny when he's quizzed.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: I would say Alan Keyes. He's the crazy Ph.D. I mean, he's, you know...

DEGENERES: The wacky Ph.D.

ROCCA: Well, I wanted to develop a sitcom for him called "The Crazy Ph.D."

DEGENERES: Yes, he's a little bit like the professor on "Giligan's Island" for the year 2000 I think.

BATTISTA: Yes, the audience agreed with you. They thought it was Alan Keyes too. And we said, you know, if he didn't know the answer, he would at least try to convince you that he did, for sure.

DEGENERES: Oh yes.

CARELL: You know what though? In speaking to Keyes, you would never get your answer within that 20-second timeframe.

ROCCA: That's right.

CARELL: It would take about three minutes to find out what the capital of Afghanistan is.

DEGENERES: Right...

(CROSSTALK)

BATTISTA: All right. One more question. One more. "Which of the four do you think would be the most painfully awful to listen to if they were to sing `Feelings' at a karaoke bar?"

DEGENERES: Oh...

BATTISTA: There was a reason Frank asked these questions, you know.

DEGENERES: Wow. At a karaoke bar. I'm going to have to say Governor Bush. Governor Bush.

ROCCA: I'm going to have to say Al Gore, because he wouldn't be able the get through the song. He'd keep sobbing (ph) and trying to raise money if it's at a Japanese karaoke bar.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

I know my politics.

BATTISTA: Any particular candidate that Comedy Central is endorsing this year, you guys? Are they going that far with it?

DEGENERES: Well, we, being journalists, of course, we can't -- we can't come out and endorse a candidate -- Senator McCain. But you know, we...

(LAUGHTER)

We have our favorites. But for our purposes, we're sad: If McCain does leave the race, it's really going -- it's going to hurt us. He's been great to us. He's very funny.

CARELL: McCain really, really liked me in particular.

(LAUGHTER)

I think he had a real affinity for me. I was hoping he was going to win just because I wanted an invitation to the White House.

ROCCA: No, no, I think that's true, but Steve, actually McCain sent me a T-shirt autographed by his wife, Cindy, and John. And they're really terrific people.

CARELL: Well, he sent me a Pokemon.

ROCCA: He sent me a video of Pokemon the movie.

BATTISTA: By the way, let me break this up. By the way, how's -- how's Bob Dole working out?

CARELL: Great.

BATTISTA: He's your political analyst at Comedy Central this year.

CARELL: He's a really funny guy.

BATTISTA: Where was that sense of humor when he was running for president?

ROCCA: Well, maybe -- who knows? Maybe it wouldn't have helped him back then. It's such -- he has such a morbid, acerbic wit. And I love it. It's great for late night. Would middle America, everybody had been turned off? I don't know. DEGENERES: No, I don't think they would have. But you know, I think -- I think it just takes some people a little longer than others to figure out what they really want to do with their life.

CARELL: Well, it's an interesting notion that you ask that, because say he had a shown that he had a great sense of humor and he had done a lot better than he did. Is that a reason to vote for someone, because they have a sense of humor? I don't know.

BATTISTA: Steve in the audience, comment or question here.

STEVE: For the Indecision 2000 crew, I was just wondering, do you all take your jobs seriously when you're going to a press conference or do you like to liven it up and be a little more comedy- oriented? Is that what your goal is? Are you trying to actually make some politics out of the situation?

BATTISTA: Are you thinking that they're trying to be serious sometimes?

STEVE: Well, at least -- I understand they're trying to be funny. But you know, are they going in there with some good questions, or are they just trying to...

BATTISTA: Do you ever ask a serious question?

ROCCA: You mean is it more sort of just frivolous fun or more satire? I mean...

STEVE: Yes, more of a satire fun versus is it a frivolous fun? That's my -- my question.

ROCCA: We try -- I think we try to split the difference, because we don't want to risk becoming sort of shrill and strident and having an agenda, but we also don't want to completely silly.

BATTISTA: You mean, there are limits. There are limits. There are actually questions you won't ask.

DEGENERES: Yes, there are even limits for Comedy Central and "The Daily Show."

BATTISTA: All right. We've got to take another break. We'll be back in a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: All right, you guys. We don't have much time, but you have your Super Tuesday special coming up tonight on Comedy Central, correct?

DEGENERES: Correct.

CARELL: Yes.

ROCCA: That's correct. BATTISTA: Anything we should look forward to?

DEGENERES: Yes, what, Steve?

CARELL: Mo?

ROCCA: All right, we've got Bob Dole on, which is exciting, we've got three correspondents in three different states. They're also battling it out for the title of who's covering the key state? So, of course, we'll have people reporting from California, New York and Rhode Island.

DEGENERES: First the two main states.

BATTISTA: And you got that babe Jon Stewart to look forward to.

ROCCA: Right.

BATTISTA: Thank you all for joining us, Vance Degeneres, Mo Rocca, Steve, Carell. Thank you all so much. Appreciate it.

CARELL: Thanks.

DEGENERES: You're welcome. Thanks for having us.

ROCCA: Thanks, Bobbie.

BATTISTA: And we'll see you again tomorrow for more TALKBACK LIVE.