Lo, the lowly stump speech — backbone of a candidate's day

[...] that spiel they repeat, with variations, to audience after audience in state after state, is a campaign essential.

The candidates' speeches have their own personalities and rhythms — Hillary Clinton's is wonkish, Donald Trump's free-wheeling — but there are common denominators: the stock jokes, the humanizing anecdotes, the sure-fire applause lines and more.

Donald Trump's playlist is jarringly eclectic — imagine a segue from the operatic strains of "Lessun Dorma" to the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Trump turns the frequent protesters at his rallies into part of the show, urging security personnel to "get 'em out of here."

Cruz, who strolls with a hand-held microphone, will stick a hand in his pocket before whipping it back out for emphasis.

Clinton likes to recall a little girl who asked her, "If you're elected the girl president, will you be paid the same as the boy president?" Kasich regales crowds with his improbable visit to Richard Nixon's Oval Office as an 18-year-old college freshman.

Sanders loves to remind crowds of those early campaign days when he was regarded as a "fringe candidate" running at 3 percent in the polls.

[...] this kicker: That is a fairly accurate description of Washington, D.C. Clinton at times will take note of the public's fascination with her hair and Trump's, revealing that while her hair is real, the color isn't.

When things get slow, Trump likes to ask his crowds who will pay for the wall he's promised to build at the Mexican border.

When Sanders' crowds boo at his references to the influence of the rich and their super PACs, the candidate bestows praise, saying, "This is a smart audience!" Clinton invites people at her rallies to call out the high interest rates they're paying on their student loans.

Cruz likes to tell his crowds that Clinton may want to return to the White House, but he's got "other government housing" in mind for her, a suggestion that she may face charges over her handling of email as secretary of state.

Trump tosses out legions of put-downs against bad trade deals, the "rigged political system," past and present GOP rivals — "lyin' Ted" Cruz, "little Marco" Rubio, "low-energy" Jeb Bush — and the "dishonest" press corps covering his speeches.

Sanders demonizes a "rigged economy" that favors the 1 percent, the "corrupt" campaign finance system and the wealthy Koch brothers and their outsized political influence, declaring, "That's not democracy, that's oligarchy!"

When he campaigned in Iowa with conservative stalwart Rep. Steve King, the Texas senator frequently told this anecdote: An awful lot of kids, when they go to bed at night, they wear Superman pajamas.

Trump turned an unexpected dimming of the lights at one rally into a metaphor for his own negotiating prowess, telling the crowd that he'd refuse to pay for renting the hall because the lights went out — even though he liked it better without the bright lights.

Cruz, at the end of one 28-stop, weeklong campaign blitz in Iowa, thanked reporters for pretending to laugh at the same jokes they'd heard dozens of times.

Associated Press writers Kathleen Ronayne, Jill Colvin, Scott Bauer, Lisa Lerer and Ken Thomas, who have traveled extensively with the candidates and can recite chunks of their stump speeches from memory, contributed to this report.