We’ll know in a year whether John McCain can win the nomination.  For now, we’ve got a pretty good idea he could win over the Catskills.

McCain is on a joke-telling tear.  His recent swing through Iowa featured rat-a-tat quip after quip, sometimes at his expense, sometimes at others’, and often at the weather, which is one of the few things in the world McCain really can’t do much about.

But was he funny?   Let’s review the jokes he told in Iowa, culled from various sources including Radio Iowa and C-SPAN’s “Road to the White House.”  There’s lots of them.  As the Iowa Caucus Cooler blog observed: “McCain starts of with a slew of jokes almost like it’s a stand-up routine.”

The first knock on the aging McCain – his jokes are old, too.  As in, the last time I heard those John McCain jokes, I laughed so hard I fell off my publicly-financed dinosaur.  Jonathan Martin gently jabbed in The Politico, “The jokes were familiar.”  And Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson noted that one joke  –  the one that involves a guy in Scottsdale introducing him as “ the latest dope from Washington”  –  McCain has “told on the trail for a while.”

I’m of mixed opinion on beating old jokes to death.  On the one hand, a sharp, alert President battling evil-doers should be able to continuously come up with new yuk-yuks.  On the other hand, hey, if the audiences are still laughing, why tinker?

Which must explain this joke:  “We used to say in Arizona we have so little water that the trees chase the dogs.”

As Paul Simon might have sung, still funny after all these years.  And we mean ALL these years for that chestnut.  (MSNBC.com’s Tom Curry once called “threadbare” the McCain joke about having a hard act to follow and feeling like Zsa Zsa Gabor’s fifth husband who on their wedding night said, “I know what I’m supposed to do; I just don’t know how to make it interesting.”  Zsa Zsa Gabor, by the way, was born in 1917, just like that joke.  Even a Larry King punchline might be a bit more topical there.)

Of the weather, McCain dryly said, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce wants Iowans “to know the temperature in Phoenix today is 72 degrees.”  Again, an oldie.  But in this case a goodie.  That joke works for me.  Shows he’s got a sense of Yuma.

Of Phil Gramm’s introduction: McCain said, “And those of you that needed an English translation of Phil’s remarks, we’ll provide them for you.”  Not bad.  It’s a fairly common line, but it’s always made me chuckle.

Here’s another:  “I don’t know if you heard the story about in the state prison, one inmate, they were in the chow line and one of ‘em said to the other one: ‘The food was a lot better in here when you were governor.’”

That line got this review from the Caucus Cooler blog: “I’m not sure why but that was the only joke that made me laugh out loud.”   The joke works because McCain saves the kicker  — “governor” – for the very end.  All too often bad joke tellers telegraph the punchline early in the joke, rendering it useless by the end.  McCain’s got a good sense of timing.  Must be why he skipped Iowa last time.

There was one real clunker.  It went something like:  Barry Goldwater ran for president.  Morris Udall from Arizona ran for president.  Bruce Babbitt ran for president, and McCain, from Arizona, ran for president.  “Arizona may be the only state in America where mothers don’t tell children that someday they can grow up and be president.”

I’m still scratching my head at that.  I understand the joke.  It’s just not funny.  And name dropping Bruce Babbitt doesn’t help.  Senator, they’re not saying boo, they’re saying, who?

But McCain did get off one top-shelf, late-night quality line: “I had my glass of ethanol this morning, and I’m feeling good.”

One word, hilarious.  Further proof that hearing John McCain on the campaign trail these days requires a three-drink minimum.