Entry #6: Saturday Night Live: The Ultimate Campaign Event

 SNL is known for making fun of various different politicians all over the country from both major parties. Some American leaders have joined in on the fun for a cameo in a skit and a few prominent political figures have even hosted an episode of the show. More politicians that want to garner national attention for their cause campaign, especially those running for President should go on SNL.

Let's start of by saying the political sketches are objectively the best part of SNL and if you're a politician hosting an episode is basically a 90-minute campaign ad. But one that isn't a sterile generic word salad that everyone groans at. A politician doing something as unique as going on SNL in the middle of a campaign humanizes them in a very unique manner. It shows average voters that at the end of the day they're still human and know how to take a joke. 

Many Americans are very tuned when it comes to politics about until two weeks before election day. Many voters aren't watching debates, 24/7 election coverage on national news stations. In fact, a lot of people learn about politics from everyday media, like Saturday Night Live. SNL (in particular the opening skit and the weekend update) show us real events in American politics that happened throughout the week in an entertaining manner where an average American who finds politics exhausting can stay up to date without even realizing they're actually learning about politics. 

Show the country a less serious part of yourself would be helpful especially for republican candidates. And trust me when I tell you this a person who is not usually in the business of helping republicans, this is simply from an objective standpoint. Conservatives aren't known for their sense of humor and are less in mainstream media than liberals. A modern-day republican going on SNL could be a good rebranding for the GOP. It could show who really has the people skills to be a party leader and who doesn't. I mean, you could image Ron DeSantis fumbling his way through an SNL monologue, seems like it'd be painful, for him and the viewers. 

Now I'm not staying that all republicans are socially inept humorless robots. In fact, the politician who made the most appearances on the sketch comedy show was the late long-time Arizona Senator and 2008 republican presidential nominee John McCain. In 2002 he become the first sitting U.S. Senator to host and just three days before the 2008 election he was in a skit which poked a great deal of fun at his Vice Presidental pick Sarah Palin. 

Other prominent figures to appear on the show include President Obama during the 2008 democratic primary. Hillary Cliton joined Kate McKinnon for a skit in which Mckinnon played Cliton and Cliton played a bartender while McKinnon took shots at herself (aka Cliton). Al Gore hosted shortly after his 2000 presidential lost stating in his monologue "good thing about not being president is now my weekends are free. Bad thing is so are the weekdays". Even former President Trump hosted before making fun of him on a weekly bias become a staple of the show, he's not such a huge fan anymore and is unlikely to return.