Psst! Did you hear the one about the world’s only superpower holding a presidential election? Here in America we certainly did.

For the past few months, jokes about the 2008 election have been given almost as much air-time as news about the 2008 election. In a few memorable cases, the news was about the jokes.

Even the candidates themselves at one point abandoned their campaign speeches to perform stand-up routines, either to entertain guests at the 63rd Annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York City, or to ingratiate themselves with the viewers of Saturday Night Live.

It’s probably fair to say that never before has humour played such an important role in American political life. One possible explanation is this: having witnessed the fiasco in Iraq and the rampant corruption in Congress, American voters have finally given up treating politicians — and the system they represent — with any kind of reverence.

But while American satire might not yet be a match the Swiftian ridicule of the British press — although the New Yorker magazine came uncomfortably close with a cartoon depicting Mr and Mrs Obama as Islamic militants who keep themselves warm by burning the Old Glory flag — millions shunned CNN and got their election fix instead from television shows such as the Colbert Report or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, both of which resemble the "fake news" genre pioneered by Chris Morris in the final years of Tory Britain.

Indeed, jokes were so integral to the campaign that the Associated Press newswire service ran a nightly update of the best gags throughout October.

The candidates themselves seemed to recognise this cultural shift, and tried to use it to their advantage. Hence John McCain announced his decision to run for president on the Late Show with David Letterman. The move ultimately backfired when McCain broke a promise to return as a guest on the show, telling Letterman that he was “racing back” to Washington to attend to the crisis in the financial markets.

In reality, McCain was a few blocks away, giving an interview to Katie Couric. For maximum embarrassment, Letterman played footage of McCain being slapped with make-up on the set of Couric’s show. “He doesn’t seem to be racing to the airport, does he?” mocked the television host. “Hey, John, I got a question! You need a ride to the airport?” McCain returned to the Late Show a few weeks later and admitted sheepishly, “I screwed up”.

But the comedic centrepiece of the 2008 election was the near-flawless impersonation of the Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin delivered by the writer and comic actress Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live. (Before Palin’s appointment, Fey had left SNL to write and star in her own critically acclaimed but relatively obscure sitcom 30 Rock.)

Fey’s parody was helped in large part by her uncanny physical resemblance to the former Alaskan beauty queen. Although Fey’s treatment of Palin was generally warm, it had bite.

In one sketch, Fey simply read word-for-word a transcript of one of Palin’s nonsensical real-life statements while the studio audience guffawed. Palin later attempted to defuse the mockery by appearing on SNL herself—but her on-screen time with Fey was limited to only a few seconds as they walked past each other. In another skit, Palin danced with an extra in a moose costume.

The Fey/Palin phenomenon not only became a regular fixture of the 2008 campaign—and a news story in its own right—but it also helped save Saturday Night Live from obsolescence. It generated the highest ratings for the long-running show in almost 15 years, and helped to justify a spin-off on Thursdays, during which another former cast member, Will Ferrell, made a comeback. Ferrell opened one show by revising his impression of George W. Bush. "I come to you tonight in the midst of a very important election between two very qualified candidates: the hot lady and the Tiger Woods guy,” he said.

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