So, the New York Post and other pillars of respectable political analysis would have us believe, Tina Fey’s satirising of Sarah Palin is worth a million votes against the McCain-Palin camp.

One can imagine with what gritted teeth Palin said that she looked forward to the off-and-rumoured-on-again appearance she might make on Saturday Night Live to, inter alia, to give her celebrated impersonator Fey “more material”. One may only hope that those behind YouTube get advance warning of a Palin appearance on SNL, the better to widen their bandwidth in anticipation of demand.

As the McCain campaign wobbles between the politics of fear and half-baked offers of solutions to the credit crunch crisis, one may at least rely on their consistency in blaming at least part of their woes on the liberal media and in particular its liberal satirists.

It was astonishing that Fey publicly hinted that a vote against Palin-McCain would be welcome so that after November 4 she could abandon her Saturday night shtick. Political bias or just the fear of being a stereotyped one-trick pony? You decide, and now it is a matter of record which way Fey would prefer you to, on election day.

I am a great fan of the Daily Show and Jon Stewart, but I do fear what will become of Stewart’s nuanced George Bush persona after January 20 2009, especially if Barack Obama’s reported eight-point lead turns into the sight of his hand placed elegantly on a holy book (no, not the one that his detractors believe that it would be) and what is sure to be an elegant presidential inauguration speech.

(Should McCain manage to turn around his current reversal of fortune, expect a presidential inauguration speech that includes the phrase “my friends” rather a lot. Whatever became of “my fellow Americans”, a noble phrase, especially from a campaign that has devoted rather a lot of energy to implying that Obama really does not belong in that category?)

Satirists are an influential lot, if only because anyone who makes one laugh generally is more welcome on the flickering screen in the sitting room than a dully earnest and dissembling politician. Yet, rather like media commentators and bloggers on all matters political, their influence should not be overestimated. Nor should their relationship with those in power be misconstrued.

The relationship between politicians and satirists is a symbiotic, and thus uneven, one. Satirists need politicians, although in the more enlightened parts of the world, at least those where poking fun is not a capital offence, none in high office can cry, “who will rid me of this troublesome comedian?” with any effect.

Satirists can become court jesters rather than rallying points of resistance.

In apartheid South Africa, one Pieter-Dirk Uys did a star turn toasting (in more than one sense of that word) the sinister idiocies of those in power in the now-gone and deeply unlamented former regime.

Uys made a fine finger-pointing PW Botha, and did the hapless Piet “Piet Promises” Koornhof to a T. Yet it was not Uys who brought down apartheid; rather, without being too harsh on him but rather on those who laughed along with him, he was in those days a salve to the liberal consciences of those who plumped themselves down in the plush seats of the theatres where he played. (Disclosure: I was among them, somewhat of a regular, in fact.) And it is a matter of record that one of the greatest fans of Uys was the same Koornhof.

As groundbreaking as Spitting Image was in the UK, and as seditiously vicious it was towards the Thatcher regime, it had no more lasting effect against her than the lifespan of a Thatcher-era cabinet minister. Spitting Image gave English-language popular culture as many skits to be told and retold as Monty Python and the pre-Bean Rowan Atkinson, but ultimately was as “in” as Private Eye’s digs against Denis. It was Tories that saw Thatcher teary-eyed, out of power and into the Lords; the macabre puppets (that's still a reference to Spitting Image, not her party colleagues) made no difference.

Here in Bulgaria, the tale is told and retold of the post-communist Prague Spring show that was Kanaleto and its depiction of then prime minister Ivan Kostov re-edited to appear to be stealing the watch of a visiting dignitary. Yet, in that contest, the political establishment of the time won, and the ensuing personnel changes at the show have gone down in the footnotes of Bulgarian television history. Kostov’s government served a full term and was ousted at the polls by another government that won a landslide majority and the attention of a new generation of satirists.

George Bush won a second term in the US in 2004 in spite of…oh, you know the list. If satirists like Fey are worth a million votes, as claimed in some quarters of the American media right now, then about a few dozen or so were asleep on duty four years ago, or else it may have been possible that on November 4, president Kerry might be seeking a second term.
Staying in 2004 for a moment, the fact that Bush so often has been a caricature of himself should by no means be misunderestimated. (And I am glad to see that Microsoft Word still queries the existence of that word.)

The greatest threat to the satire industry is Obama himself, who in his earnestness and rhetorical mastery, along with his residual professorial air, simply is not that funny. For the Daily Show’s Stewart, it may be a case of adapt of die, given that it will be only so many months that the Bush routine will have any tread on the tyre.

Yes, Obama is capable of misstatements, such as his assertion that on the campaign trail he had visited 57 states, but that may be written off to trail fatigue, rather as one may be kind about McCain saying that as president he would veto any beers (rather than bills) he deemed inappropriate.

Misstatements will not play in the swing states, that peculiarly American term that refers to states that are strategically crucial but have yet to make up their electoral minds, rather than states where mass gatherings are held and car keys are placed in giant bowls (that’s swinging states, Virginia, and are only a myth.)

And no Tina Fey will do any damage to the Palin hardcore, that group that she has been a focal point of mobilisation and to which I choose to refer as the Ancient and Redneck Order of Moose Murderers.

If any satirists should be reading this and despairing, take comfort. The millions of voters over whom you hold sway may be a misoverestimate (you’re going to miss him, aren’t you?) but if the poll numbers are correct, and that lead in the polls turns into an Obama White House, here are two words of comfort: Joe Biden.