Inconceivable! Princess Bride And Converse Star On US Campaign Trail

With less than two months until the US presidential election, virtually no element of American life is escaping the campaigns' gravitational pull, which this week dragged everything from "The Princess Bride" to Converse sneakers into the mix.

AFP takes a look at some of the wackiest moments in the race between President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden over the last seven days.

Video of Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris, striding off an airplane in Wisconsin wearing jeans and a pair of classic black Converse sneakers had social media stomping its feet in appreciation.

The casual, youthful fashion choice stood as both a stark contrast in a campaign that pits two septuagenarians against one another, and a sharp rebuke of decades of sexist judgment of women politicians' clothing.

The Biden campaign jumped at the positive buzz, launching a new T-shirt featuring Biden's famous aviator glasses alongside Converse sneakers.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz learned that life is pain when the cast of his favorite movie, "The Princess Bride," announced they were reuniting for a virtual table read -- to raise money for the Democrats.

"That is the sound of ultimate suffering," superfan Cruz tweeted -- one of the 1987 classic's many quotable quotes.

He explained it was the sound being made by those who wished the "perfect movie" was "preserved from Hollywood politics."

Star Cary Elwes, who played the film's hero Westley, tweeted back that Cruz could join them "if you only left the fire swamp." Inconceivable.

A woman who was told she could not wear her anti-Trump T-shirt at a New Hampshire polling station because it violated the rules of neutrality fulfilled her civic duty by voting topless.

The woman, trying to cast her vote during a primary held in the city of Exeter, was wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words "McCain Hero/Trump Zero."

It was a tribute to John McCain, the late Republican taken prisoner during the Vietnam War before being released and serving in the US Senate, and whom Trump held in deep contempt.

"Your AC won't be safe in Joe Biden's America." It was an apparently chilling threat brandished by a Trump campaign adviser against his presidential rival.

Jason Miller was responding to a tweet from the mayor of Los Angeles, a Democrat like Biden, asking residents of his city to set their thermostat at 78 degrees Fahrenheit (25.5 degrees Celsius), a measure to save energy in a state plagued by historic wildfires.

Graphic content and Nazi swastikas interrupted a remote hearing to assess the reliability of voting machines in the state of Georgia when the Zoom session was hacked.

Nearly a hundred people were following the hearing, which had to be quickly suspended -- though it was resumed an hour later with increased security.

It was intended to respond to claims by the Coalition for Good Governance that new voting machines were unreliable and vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

The coalition is calling for a return to paper ballots.