The SNL Effect

Only in the media environment of today could a comedy show alter the course of a presidential election.

Since the 1970’s Saturday Night Live has been parodying U.S. Presidents and revealing something about their personality or character. During his 2000 White House race, Al Gore’s aides showed him clips of Darrell Hammond’s spot-on parody, to demonstrate that Gore needed to be more loose on the campaign trail. But in the most recent parody on politics, it is the press that was skewered more than any candidate. And they didn’t like it.

In the first SNL parody, Hillary Clinton was hit with difficult questions while Barack Obama was praised without being asked a tougher question than “are you comfortable?” Then, after the faux reporter asked, “Are you mad at me?” Obama said no, and the relieved reporter announced, “all the shilling for you in my campaign coverage has been so obvious and because I spend every night sitting in front of your house in a parked car.”

A few days later Clinton mentioned the SNL parody in an actual, real-life debate on MSNBC. Her point was clear. She wanted to make sure the media was paying attention. They were the butt of the joke, not the other way around.

This past weekend at another mock debate, SNL’s reporters asked Clinton’s character if she knew the name of the new Russian President, then after saying it aloud, asked Obama the same question. This went on and on, driving home the point that the harder questions go to Clinton.

This kind of allegation - that the media goes brain dead on an official and does not ask tough questions is a touchy subject today. Since 2003, the media has been dogged by bloggers, citizen journalists and media critics for literally being asleep at the switch and never questioning the White House on their allegations of Saddam Hussein’s stockpile of WMD’s. Faced again with the insinuation of failing to do their job, they went on the attack.

On the Monday before the Texas and Ohio primary, Obama faced something new - an angry press corp. They wanted to know about Tony Rezko, his stance on NAFTA, and his readiness to be President. The press conference didn’t go so well for Obama. He walked out on in early. The next day, an almost stunned Obama told reporters traveling on his plane couldn’t believe they took the bait from the Clinton campaign. They didn’t. They took it from SNL.

And that changed everything in the democratic primary. If only SNL had done the same parody prior to the invasion of Iraq.