Sen. John McCain took his political campaign to the airwaves in a comic way Saturday night, spoofing his significant lack of money when compared with his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama. Making fun of Obama’s paid program that appeared (at big expense) simultaneously on several TV networks last week, McCain, accompanied by Tina Fay impersonating Gov. Sarah Palin, depicted himself as having been unable to afford the big networks and having to settle for a program on the QVC shopping channel:

Later in the show, he appeared on the "Weekend Update" fake-news segment and showed himself a good sport in making fun of his "maverick" image:

In addition, the show also included a sketch mocking the odious Keith Olberman of MSNBC, with guest host Ben Affleck correctly depicting the talker host as an annoyingly mad crank.

All in all, McCain came off as personable and quite likeable. Whether it will have any effect on voters is surely debatable, but it seems likely his appearance raised some people’s comfort level regarding him and his campaign.

The episode did quite well in the ratings, with a 9.0 in the Nielsen gauge, about 12 million viewers—15 percent less than Gov. Sarah Palin’s extremely highly rated appearance on SNL last month.