Martin Eisenstadt’s Blog

Stop worrying about Saturday Night Live: Lorne Michaels is a close friend and contributor to John McCain.

A lot of my colleagues in the McCain campaign have been wringing their hands over Saturday Night Live’s portrayal of Gov. Sarah Palin. They fear that Tina Fey’s portrayal will deflate the media superstar we’ve created with John’s inspired choice for running mate. Pointing to how previous SNL depictions have tanked other candidates over the years (think Al “Lock Box” Gore or Michael “How am I losing to this guy?” Dukakis), there is some concern.

But I keep trying to reassure them not to worry. SNL producer Lorne Michaels has a “special relationship” with John McCain and he’s not going to let Tina Fey put Gov. Palin’s reputation through the shredder. Why do you think Fey’s Palin appeared side by side with Amy Poehler’s Hillary Clinton? From what I hear, Fey and her old writing colleagues wanted to do a spoof of the Charles Gibson interview first - ridiculing Palin front and center - until Michaels demanded the joint appearance spoof to deflect the hit on Palin. Whether John made that call to Michaels directly, or whether Michaels did it on his own volition, it doesn’t really matter.

People forget that Sen. McCain’s appeared on the show at least twice - even hosting once in 2002. (And from what I hear, the normally coke-fueled afterparty was toned down a notch that night, but John still had a great time regaling war stories at the wet bar with Jimmy Fallon.)

Lorne Michaels has actually contributed $2000 to John’s campaign. And he hasn’t given a dime to Barack Obama. For a member of the liberal New York elite, Michaels is really quite a mensch. More importantly, he contributed early in the primary season when John could count his true friends on one hand. Michaels was there for him. And if there’s one lesson John McCain learned from his time in North Vietnam, it’s when you’re down and out, you never forget the friends who helped you get through the tough times. Speaking of friends, it’s worth noting that NBC CEO Jeffrey Immelt gave John McCain $2300 in February, and again, nothing to Obama.

Speaking of Obama, don’t you remember hearing news accounts last week that he was supposed to appear on the premiere episode of SNL? At the last minute, he backed out, saying it was because of Hurricane Ike. That’s a nice gloss to put on it, but that’s not the version I heard. Like I said, Lorne Michaels is a mensch, and he’s been looking out for John. Sure the Fey version of Sarah Palin was a bit below the belt, but guess what? It kept Sarah Palin in the news for another cable news cycle, and Obama out of it. Sounds like the convention strategy all over again, and it’s working great!