NEW YORK – Sen. John Kerry’s first political task Tuesday was bantering with Kelly Ripa on “Live with Regis and Kelly” about her greeting him in the hallway before the television show in a ratty Oscar the Grouch T-shirt, her hair in curlers, her hands slick with lotion.

“I never expected to meet you the way I did this morning,” Kerry said as he came on the set of the television station WABC for the nationally syndicated talk show.

“It’s a sight, isn’t it?” shot back Ripa’s co-host, Regis Philbin.

“I’ve embarrassed my family for generations to come,” Ripa said.

Politically, it may have been Kerry’s most important campaign stop of the day – a chance to display his lighter side on a program that reached an average of 4.8 million viewers a day over the last year, according to Nielsen Media Research.

On Monday, Kerry dropped by “The Late Show with David Letterman.” Aides said both visits were aimed at addressing what they call the “likability factor” – the sense identified in recent polls by the Pew Research Center and Zogby International that many voters haven’t warmed up to Kerry on a personal level.

“You’re very handsome, senator,” Ripa said. “Is that inappropriate for me to say?”

“We’re both married, so it’s OK,” Kerry said.

She suggested that Harrison Ford could play him in a movie about the campaign. Kerry blushed and smiled.

And so it went, as the two hosts and the senator from Massachusetts talked about Kerry’s eating habits on the road (“I’m on the starvation plan”), the upcoming football game between Notre Dame, Philbin’s alma mater, and Boston College, as well as the storied baseball rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.

Mike McCurry, a senior adviser to the Democratic presidential candidate, said the two shows appealed to audiences that the campaign wants to reach: young people, in the case of “Letterman,” and stay-at-home moms, in the case of “Live.” Polls show both audiences are important slices of the undecided vote.

A Pew Research study earlier this year found that 21 percent of voters under age 30 said their primary source of political information came from such late-night comedy shows as “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central, “Letterman” and “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno. That was about equal to the percentage of such voters who said they relied on newspapers or watched network television news to learn about the candidates.

All that was important, but “the main reason is he (Kerry) had a lot of fun,” McCurry said. “John Kerry needs to have more fun on the campaign trail. If people see him in a variety of settings having a good time, laughing and smiling, that will be helpful.”

On “Letterman,” Kerry endured some tough but respectful questions about his shifting explanations of his position on the war in Iraq. Then came the comedic payoff: Kerry got to read the “Top 10 Bush Tax Proposals.” No. 3 was “Cheney gets to claim Bush as a dependent,” referring to Vice President Dick Cheney. No. 4 was a joke about Kerry’s billionaire wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. “Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa to cover the damn thing.”

“Letterman” was seen by an average of 4.8 million people a night over the last year, and Nielsen reported that it received its highest overnight ratings Monday since a March appearance by pop singer Janet Jackson. Kerry’s appearance marked the show’s highest-rated season opener since 1993.

Kerry got a chance to make fun of himself on “Live.”

Noting that he’d appeared on two entertainment shows, Philbin urged Kerry to “stop by “Jackass,”‘ an MTV series based on extreme physical stunts. “It’ll be an experiment,” he said.

“Some people say I do every day on the campaign trail,” Kerry said.