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Why
Politicians Aren't American Idols
by Mad Dog
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There’s a reason
the networks only produce 22 episodes in a normal season—they don’t
want us to get sick of it. In TV as well as elections, familiarity
breeds boredom. |
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There’s a lot to be
learned from reality TV. Aside from the obvious, such as that people
will do anything to see their face on television, that there are live
wiggling protein sources you never considered eating and wouldn’t
unless it meant you would see your face on television, and to paraphrase
H.L. Mencken, that no one ever lost money by underestimating the
intelligence of bored TV viewers, there’s also the revelation that it
really is possible to get people involved.
Look at American Idol, which
for reasons that apparently had more to do with solar flares than
entertainment value, was hugely popular. The two-hour finale drew 22.8
million viewers. Of them, 16 million cast a vote to select the winner.
That means 72.7 percent of those watching actually went through the
trouble of having someone hand them the phone, then punching 11 buttons
when they could have been doing something constructive, such as going to
the bathroom, breaking open another bag of Slim Jim flavored tortilla
chips, or—lord help us—reading a book.
Contrast this with the last
presidential election, but only if you promise not to start that
He-Stole-It-No-He-Didn’t argument again. On that November day 51.3
percent of the American public who were eligible to vote bothered doing
so. Now it’s true you couldn’t vote by phone from the comfort of
your Coke-stained La-Z-Boy recliner. And it’s also true that none of
the political commentators were half as cranky or entertaining as Simon
Cowell. (Okay, John McLaughlin of the McLaughlin Group is, but
only 27 people in the country know who he is and of them, only four have
actually watched the show.). But that doesn’t fully explain why 42
percent more people will vote for an overhyped singer than an overhyped
politician.
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The most effective thing we could do would be to make
elections more like reality TV. |
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It’s probably because American Idol was so much more fun
than the campaign. Then again, anything this side of a root canal is
more fun than an election, though you have to admit that watching
candidates on the campaign trail would be much more bearable if we were
given nitrous oxide to dull the pain. It’s October 2002 and the
presidential election isn’t for two years. Yet already the media is
saying Al Gore will announce whether he’s planning on running by the
first of the year. Hey, there’s a reason the networks only produce 22
episodes in a normal season—they don’t want us to get sick of it. In
TV as well as elections, familiarity breeds boredom. Didn’t we learn
anything from Who Wants to be a Millionaire? After
five-night-a-week overkill Reeg is back where he belongs, sucking up to
a pretty young co-host. Is this what we want of our presidents? Of
course not, we want them to be different. We want the pretty young
things to suck up to them.
There’s no question people are
bored with politics. That’s why in the recent Nevada gubernatorial
primary the Democratic candidate with the second-most number of votes
was “None.” That’s right, the state that allows gambling will let
you bet on no one to win the election. Actually this year was an
improvement over 1976 and 1978 when “None” came in first in the
congressional primaries. Unfortunately “None” isn’t allowed to win
so they gave the seats to the second-place candidates. Talk about having
losers in Congress.
A lot could be done to spice up the
election process. For starters, the campaign could be short, like
English elections and Emeril’s eponymous sitcom. We could also limit
the amount of money they can spend, which would not only put candidates
on an even keel, but would give someone who might not have more than
$124.98 of his or her own money to toss into the campaign a fighting
chance. After all, they’re elections, not an episode of Who Wants
to be a Millionaire So You Can Buy a Senate Seat. But the most
effective thing we could do would be to make elections more like reality
TV.
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Next we’ll put them in a room with the CFO of Enron and a
hot young intern and watch them sweat—think Big Brother meets Temptation
Island—and ’ll make them get in the ring for Celebrity Boxing
with 15-minute has-beens. |
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When the campaign season starts, which is about a week after
election day, every Tom, Dick, and Lamar who ever dreamed about having
sex in the Lincoln bed tosses his or her hat into the ring. By the time
election day rolls around there are only two major party candidates left
standing. As long as there’s such a high attrition rate, why not make
good, entertaining use of it? Lets take a tip from Survivor and
hold candidate challenges to see who can shake the most hands in one
day, who can track down and capture a citizen that actually cares, and
who can eat the most crow the soonest, which of course they’ll have to
do when they get into office and change their stripes anyway. Then once
a week they’ll gather around a campfire with Jeff Probst and vote
someone out of the campaign. Hopefully none of them will take to walking
around naked.
Then we’ll add a dash of Fear
Factor. We’ll make them do things they’d never dream of doing if
the presidency wasn’t at stake. Things which make any candidate break
out in a cold sweat. You know, like submit to a lie detector test, speak
in simple declarative sentences that have a well defined point, and say
“scout’s honor” after every speech. Next we’ll put them in a
room with the CFO of Enron and a hot young intern and watch them
sweat—think Big Brother meets Temptation Island—and
we’ll make them get in the ring for Celebrity Boxing with
15-minute has-beens like Kato Kaelin, Gary Coleman, and Ross Perot.
If we do this we might just end up
with an election in which people enjoy being involved and might actually
cast a vote. Especially if they can do it by phone. “Press one for the
Democratic candidate. Press two for the Republican candidate. Press
three for Ralph Nader even though there’s no chance in hell he can
win. Press four for ‘None.’ Press five to start this menu over. And
press six to hang up and start the campaign over.”
©2002 Mad Dog
Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country.
Read them while waiting for the busy signal to stop so you can
vote.
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