Washington - The longest election campaign in US history is over - and in addition to the hard facts, there were many absurdities.

OBAMA ACCESSORIES: After a scolding by the media, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in June gave up a seal that had previously adorned his lectern at campaign rallies: an eagle with spread wings and an olive branch. Critics said it resembled too much the seal of the US president.

BLACK HUMOUR: A caricature of Obama on the front page of the renowned liberal magazine The New Yorker caused a stir in July. The picture showed Obama in the White House wearing traditional muslim robes, with his wife Michelle in camouflage trousers, a machine gun on her back, giving Barack a "fist-bump" salute. In the caricature, a portrait of Osama bin Laden hangs from the wall of the Oval Office.

SLIP OF THE TONGUE: As he put forward his vice presidential candidate Joe Biden in August, Obama made a painful slip of the tongue. "Let me introduce you to the next president," he said before tens of thousands of people in Springfield, Illinois.

LIPSTICK: Republican nominee John McCain raised eyebrows with his pick of unknown Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. She made an enduring impression with her speech debut at the party convention in Saint-Paul, Minnesota in September, where she boasted of her role as fierce advocate for her kids in sports. "What is the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull?" she asked. "Lipstick."

BIZARRE CAMPAIGN PUBLICITY: In television adverts, McCain, fed up with Obama's popularity and crowd-draw, compared Obama to the Hollywood starlet Paris Hilton. "He's the biggest celebrity in the world. But, is he ready to lead?" Party girl Hilton fired back with her own video, mocking McCain as a "wrinkly white-haired guy" and putting herself forward as a candidate, with a wink worthy of another winker, Sarah Palin.

McCAIN DEFENDS OBAMA: Even McCain had to dampen the rough campaign rhetoric at times. In October, McCain took the microphone away from a woman who claimed Obama was a Muslim. McCain: "No, no, he is a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with." Later, Republican stalwart Colin Powell, an African-American and former secretary of state to President George W Bush, endorsed the Democrat and said that even though Obama is a Christian, "the right answer is, 'What if he is?' Is there something wrong with some seven- year- old Muslim American kid believing he or she can be president?"

JOE THE PLUMBER: A plumber from Ohio unexpectedly became a campaign icon. Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as "Joe the Plumber," became the most quoted man in the final presidential debate. McCain used him as an example of a middle-class man who would be hit hard by Obama's proposed tax increases if he earned more than 250,000 dollars a year. Joe the Plumber became a campaign fixture, and is now in demand on talk shows and cable television.

SELF-IRONY: At a gala dinner in New York, the candidates tried to be ironic about themselves. Obama countered the view held by some of his supporters that he is a kind of Messiah. "Contrary to the rumours you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton." That is of course where Superman was born. McCain took his turn, and said he had fired his senior campaign advisers. "All of their positions will now be held by a man named Joe the Plumber," he explained.

COMEDY: The campaign afforded record ratings to US comedy shows. Actress Tina Fey, of the satirical programme Saturday Night Live, became a crowd favourite with her uncanny look-alike parody of Sarah Palin.

WARDROBES: The Republican Party reportedly spent 150,000 dollars for chic designer clothes for Palin. Following public outcry, she vowed to stop wearing the items and return to her thrift-shop purchases from Anchorage.

FAKE SARKOZY: Palin fell for a prank from a Canadian comedian who pretended over the phone to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The Republican talked about hunting and about her political ambitions. When the comedian flattered her by saying that she would one day make a good president, Palin laughed and said: "Maybe in eight years."