John McCain will be returning to Saturday Night Live, the McCain campaign has confirmed. McCain was the featured host in 2002, and this will be the Senator’s second cameo appearance this year. It couldn’t come at a better time, for him, either. The November 1st show is airing just three days before election day and SNL has been a great way to get a little push in popularity this election.

Aides to the Republican presidential candidate said Friday that McCain will make a detour from battleground states to appear on “Saturday Night Live,” the late-night show that has been a must-watch for many during the political season.

McCain last appeared on “Saturday Night Live” in May, after clinching the nomination and while the Democratic primary continued. The 72-year-old Arizona senator joked about his age, saying: “I ask you, what should we be looking for in our next president? Certainly, someone who is very, very, very old.”

When McCain hosted “SNL” in 2002, he mocked singer Barbra Streisand’s political advocacy by performing a medley of her songs.

[From Associated Press]

John McCain was funny and likeable in his previous appearances. His turn on Barbra Streisand by getting into her repertoire of songs the way she gets into politics was priceless. His sense of humor has waned a little bit in these final weeks of the election but I’m sure the SNL writers will come up with something, possibly even to joke on his recent irritability, and I’m betting McCain will be enough of a sport to go along with it.

About a month ago, rumor had been that Barack Obama was going to be on this weekend’s show, but that rumor subsequently dissipated. Lorne Michaels, the man behind SNL, said that the show doesn’t confirm a guest star until they’re in the building and no one was in the building yet, so he’s not even confirming McCain at this point. He did say Obama was tentatively scheduled to be on last week’s show but was unable to make it after having gone to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother. I was honestly still expecting him to show up on Saturday, until I heard McCain had been scheduled.

McCain will have another Democrat to face, though. Ben Affleck, an outspoken Democrat and Obama supporter is the host this week, and that has been confirmed. Affleck has been hinting at getting into politics for awhile now. Maybe McCain will provide the same opportunity for him that Joe the Plumber was given, I hear he’s thinking of running for office, too.

Here is a link to a clip from 2002 of John McCain as a creepy husband.

John McCain and his wife Cindy are shown campaigning in Sarasota, FL on 10/23/08. Credit: ANG/Fame Pictures