Tina Fey changed the election.

The Guardian might have a point...

[...] Then, something truly astonishing occurred. Tina Fey, the lantern-jawed alumnus of Saturday Night Live, and creator of the critically esteemed sitcom 30 Rock, made a return visit to Saturday Night Live and began doing a dead-on impersonation of McCain's gee-whiz, aw-shucks running mate, Sarah Palin. Her send-up of the intellectually anaemic Alaskan was seen by countless millions on YouTube and soon became the No1 topic of conversation in America. Almost overnight, McCain's poll numbers began to drop precipitously, as the arrayed forces of electronically transmitted satire rained down on the GOP ticket. Before you knew it, Palin was viewed as a clown, a dolt, a joke, and McCain was condemned as a nitwit for selecting her as his running mate. For the first time in American history, a presidential candidate had seen all his hopes and dreams undone by the sheer emotive power of naked, unalloyed satire.

Obviously, Ms Fey did not accomplish this all by herself. Clearly, the savage nightly attacks by Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart played an important role in softening up the target. Surely the satirical tabloid The Onion should get some credit here. Without a doubt, the withering contempt of Bill Maher and Michael Moore played a vital role in causing the Republican colossus to come crashing to earth.

But the truth is, Moore and Maher and Stewart and Colbert had been flaying the Republican party for years without any notable effect. Not until Tina Fey stepped into the ring and began eviscerating the hapless Palin did the tide truly begin to turn. Like Horatius at the bridge, like William Tell versus the Austrian invaders, like George Washington at Valley Forge, Ms Fey had come to the aid of her country at the moment her country needed her most. She serviced it with a smile.