25 best cold-opens in SNL history
By David Rouben
12. “Maverick” Sarah Palin and Joe Biden square off in VP Debate
Before the real Sarah Palin made an appearance on SNL, Tina Fey continued her whirlwind tour of the VP candidate in a sketch parodying the debate between her and Joe Biden. While Fey, understandably, gets all of the attention here, Jason Sudeikis was excellent as Biden while Queen Latifah as the moderator was a stellar casting choice — even though she spent most of the sketch trying not to laugh.
This debate came after the Katie Couric interviews that tanked Palin’s public perception, which is why Latifah says as long as she “at no point cries, faints, runs out of the building or vomits, you should consider the debate a tie.” Biden likely felt like all he had to do to win this debate was show up, but he had some great lines in here. He made sure to preface every criticism of John McCain by stressing how close they are while repeating words that didn’t need to be repeated. However, they did also mock his ambiguous stance on gay marriage.
As for Palin, Fey brought out all the greatest hits. She tried to win back her base by talking about how she met with the hockey moms and Joe Six Packs of the world, while repeating the word “maverick” more than Al Gore repeated lockbox. Before Kanye West and Trump had dragon energy, Palin and McCain had maverick energy. She even made sure to reference the drinking game people were playing at home with that term — now that’s a candidate that simply gets it.
Palin’s two greatest moments, though, came when she dodged a question about healthcare regulation to talk about Israel and not pander to voters in Florida. Then, when asked to make a closing statement, she started playing the flute since she thought it was the talent portion of the debate. Had Palin done that in real life, she probably would’ve won over some voters.
While Biden ended up winning this debate, Palin at least revived her public image after the Couric interviews. However, that wasn’t a very high bar to clear. The VP debate doesn’t tend to have a large bearing on the outcome of an election, but not according to the 70 million people that tuned into this one.