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One is a hard-drinking socialist who has five children by three different women. Another is a sometimes quiz-show host who once called black children "pickaninnies" and admitted that he tried cocaine, but sneezed instead of snorted. The third is an openly gay, marathon-running former top policeman.

No, they're not contestants in the latest reality TV show — they're the leading candidates to become the mayor of London when the election is held Thursday. The race is a dead heat between Labour candidate Ken Livingstone, 62, the two-term incumbent known as Red Ken, and Boris Johnson, 43, a Tory MP famous for his floppy blond hair, his verbal gaffes — he insulted both the inhabitants of Liverpool and Papua New Guinea within a year — and for outrageous quips. "Voting Tory," he once wrote, "will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW."

Both men hover around 40 per cent in the latest opinion polls. Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick, who was until recently a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police, is running a distant third.

A campaign that is supposed to be about key issues — crime rates, a sputtering public transit system and preparations for the 2012 Olympics — has often seemed more like open-mike night at a comedy club.

At a recent debate, Mr. Livingstone hammered home his central argument, that Mr. Johnson's only management role has been running the Spectator magazine, "although he often made difficult decisions about where to go for lunch."

Mr. Johnson retorted, "I showed great leadership there."

Mr. Paddick accused the mayor of supporting Time Out magazine's "campaign for 24-hour drinking by personal example," a reference to a recent documentary that appeared to show Mr. Livingstone drinking alcohol at a morning meeting.

"They have come to resemble a troupe of old-time comedians who appear jovial on stage but loathe each other behind the scenes," veteran political journalist Simon Hoggart noted.

For some observers, the personalities have overshadowed the issues, although there's an argument that this has been a feature of the London mayoral elections since the office was created in 2000.

"The London mayoral race is about personalities," said Philip Cowley, a politics professor at the University of Nottingham. "That's why it's Boris against Ken," rather than Mr. Johnston against Mr. Livingston, he added.

Remarkably, the two outspoken candidates have largely managed not to make any of the verbal gaffes they've been known for in the past. Three years ago, Mr. Livingstone was accused of anti-Semitism for a comment he made to a Jewish reporter for The Evening Standard newspaper, comparing him to a concentration-camp guard. Mr. Johnson was lambasted in 2002 for a column he wrote referring to "flag-waving pickaninnies" and drew fire from the gay community for likening same-sex partnerships to marriage "between three men and a dog."

For two very dissimilar men, little separates them in the way of policy: Both are running on a platform of reducing street crime, drawing the financial sector to London and improving public transport.

Their backgrounds are very different. Mr. Livingstone is a south Londoner who went to teachers college, a lifelong political scrapper with more lives than a cat. He's been largely popular in his eight years as mayor, although his bluntness and certain policies, such as the congestion charge, a levy for driving in central London, have made him an increasingly divisive figure.

"Ken Livingstone is a most extraordinary character, a vast fish in a medium-sized political pool," said Tony Travers of the Greater London Group research centre at the London School of Economics.

Mr. Livingstone's opponents accuse him of running the city with an authoritarian will and say that after eight years, the mayor's office has become a seat of cronyism.

"I just don't trust Ken Livingstone," Mr. Paddick said during the campaign, rejecting the idea he would take a post in the mayor's office if he lost the race. "The thought of having him as my boss sends shivers down my spine."

Mr. Johnson was born in New York, privately educated at Eton College, and became president of the student union at Oxford. He gained fame as a journalist, novelist and occasional host of the satirical current-affairs show Have I Got News For You, where he displayed a talent for self-deprecation that stays with him to this day.

What does unite the two men, though, is a troubled relationship with their parties and a reputation for saying whatever is on their minds: Mr. Livingstone, a lifelong Labour politician, was spurned as his party's choice in the 2000 election (which he won as an independent).

Mr. Johnson was fired from the Tory shadow cabinet three years ago after clashing with the party leader over an affair Mr. Johnson had with a female journalist.

"You've got two maverick politicians, both with curious relationships to their parties," Mr. Cowley said. "They both have great strengths, but they're both deeply flawed as well."