Bar none, the #1 non-political winner from this year’s election process is Tina Fey. You’d be hard pressed to find another cultural figure who entered the election maelstrom a superstar and emerged a megastar. She was already having a good year, with “30 Rock” winning both Emmys and critical acclaim, but the Palin impression, and the prominence of being identified with a woman whose politics were clearly so opposite to her own, transformed her into a household name and multi-million-dollar-author-to-be. (I know I should have asked her for a job back in NYC when I saw her in our supermarket. Now she’s too big to give me the time of day, you betcha.)

Beyond the fetching Fey, we have SNL’s Fred Armisen, who’s just been elected into a gig of four years at least (should he choose to remain on the show that long) playing Barack Obama. But as USA Today points out, Armisen is not an African-American, and the lack of diversity at SNL means there’s no one to play Michelle Obama as time goes on. But more challenging is that Obama’s not as easy a target as Palin would have been (or as Bush was). Comedians will be challenged to find the comedy hook in an Obama presidency (which might be a refreshing change for America).
Other winners in this election year according to USA Today: Letterman, for handling McCain’s appearance cancellation; Joy Behar, for her challenge to McCain over his campaign ads; and of course, Katie Couric, whose probes of Palin revealed that the vice-presidential candidate read “all the magazines” but couldn’t seem to name one.