Leno beckons

Mitt Romney is taking a page out of the playbook of one of his rivals by leaving Nevada on the eve of the state's GOP caucus to appear on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

That's what former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee did before Iowa's Jan. 3 caucus, and he went on to beat Romney there. So now it's Romney who's heading to Burbank today to tape the popular late-night program.

Of course, when Huckabee left Iowa for California in the midst of the hotly contested race in the first state to vote in the 2008 presidential race, other GOP candidates smugly suggested he was making a big mistake.

That thinking has changed, said Romney's traveling press secretary, Eric Fehrnstrom.

"It worked for Huckabee," Fehrnstrom told reporters on the campaign plane. "He won in Iowa, so apparently it was the right strategy. The path to the White House goes through the Jay Leno show."

Fehrnstrom joked that Romney's appearance this evening on "The Tonight Show" "was the only way we could be in Nevada and South Carolina at the same time."

'Entertainer' Barack

The White House campaign has brought a new act to Vegas.

Democrat Barack Obama tried to use humor to cut down rival Hillary Rodham Clinton before 's presidential caucus. His "Iowa nice" approach gone, Obama debuted a biting political stand-up routine Thursday night that mocked his rival and employed it again on Friday.

Obama began by recalling a moment in Tuesday night's debate when he and his rivals were asked to name their biggest weakness. Obama answered first, saying he has a messy desk and needs help managing paperwork — something his opponents have since used to suggest he's not up to managing the country. John Edwards said his biggest weakness is that he has a powerful response to seeing pain in others, and Clinton said she gets impatient to bring change to America.

"Because I'm an ordinary person, I thought that they meant, 'What's your biggest weakness?"' Obama said to laughter from a packed house at Rancho High School. "If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. And then I could have said, 'Well, ya know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don't want to be helped. It's terrible."'

No dancin' fool

Romney answered question after question from local and national reporters in Reno on Friday, but there was something he wasn't willing to do at the press conference.

When a cell phone belonging to a member of the press corps started ringing to the beat of a pop song, a reporter asked the candidate to show off his dance moves.