On political durability, institutional appetite and the species most likely to inherit the press conference.
Political parties like to compare themselves to movements, families and broad churches. The more accurate zoological reference is often the cockroach: difficult to embarrass, structurally adaptable and already halfway to the next room when the lights come on.
The joke works because the underlying machinery is not comic at all. Institutions survive by turning each failure into proof that the institution is indispensable.