Turns out, the House-Senate rivalry can be even more powerful than partisanship. At last night’s Washington Press Club Foundation dinner, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the crowd that she was crossing party lines to root for Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), who faced off against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) in an unofficial comedy competition.

[IMGCAP(1)]Even Pence seemed a bit surprised by the California Democrat’s endorsement.

Though there’s no award given for funniest Member of Congress, there’s always the parlor game: Who got the biggest laughs?

It looks like Pelosi’s backing didn’t help Pence, whose punchlines elicited fewer guffaws than McCaskill’s did. The Indianan’s best material was a dead-on impersonation of former President George W. Bush that would have made comedian Will Ferrell proud.

And he took self-deprecating swipes at his own party, at one point saying the GOP had to recruit people who “excel on the power of their ideas” (as the naked Cosmo centerfold of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) flashed on a large screen) or who were “just downright sexy” (accompanied by a picture of a shirtless hunk with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) face pasted on).

McCaskill also took a few jabs at her own party, saying that Pelosi “represents Giorgio Armani in the House of Representatives,” a dig at the Speaker’s well-known penchant for fancy designer duds.

McCaskill joked about the February snowstorms that caused the dinner to be postponed from its original date. “The streets were so tied up, Michael Steele and the RNC paid $2,000 to watch.”

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