By Craig Crawford, CQ Staff

The longest, meanest and most expensive presidential campaign is coming to a close, leaving us with no shortage of memorable moments.

Republican runner-ups for the Most Memorable Moments of 2008 would have to include strange moments such as nearly every GOP candidate raising a hand when asked at a debate how many did NOT believe in evolution. Or how about Mitt Romney singing “Who let the dogs out” in a hysterically awkward impression of a rap star during a Florida stop.

On the Democratic side, just about anything Mike Gravel said or did qualifies as the weirdest among his party’s candidate.

Other memorable and pivotal moments of this campaign include:

1) When Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton first lost the image of invincibility for her candidacy a year ago at a Philadelphia debate by waffling and seeming not to understand a question of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants.

2) Clinton’s choking up on camera during the final hours before the New Hampshire primary helped her win the state, ensuring that her battle against Barack Obama would turn out to be one of the lengthiest and most hard fought in any party’s history.

Video: CQ Politics columnist Craig Crawford recaps some of the more memorable moments from the 2008 election

3) John McCain also managed an incredible comeback in New Hampshire, but, unlike Clinton, he kept the momentum until essentially clinching his party’s nomination in Florida’s Republican primary.

4) Perhaps one of the most significant developments in this campaign was how Barack Obama inspired so many supporters to create their own high-tech content around his candidacy at the beginning of this race. The “Yes We Can” music video on YouTube generated millions of hits. And don’t forget “Obama Girl.”

5) The emergence of Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright making provocative charges on video threatened to derail his campaign. But Obama recovered with a speech on race that is destined to one of the most historic in this campaign.

6) The McCain campaign produced one of the most memorable advertisements of this race, comparing Obama to celebrities such as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. It sparked a bit of momentum for McCain, but Hilton took care of that by making her own ad mocking McCain’s age.

7) McCain re-energized his own party by picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. But Tina Fey took care of that with a blistering impression of the Alaska governor on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”

Perhaps the most pivotal of this campaign’s memorable moments would have to be McCain’s choice in mid-September to respond to the Wall Street financial crisis by saying, “The fundaments of the economy are strong.” It made McCain seem out of touch with average voters, and became the Obama campaign’s favorite target for pummeling the GOP nominee.