Reality Campaign

With all this wild speculation about the newly blown-open democratic field, I had a spark of near-genius. Nobody knows who the democratic nominee is going to be, and nobody will know until probably much later on in the game. A corollary issue: networks and political parties alike are always bemoaning the lack of ratings for the broadcast of party conventions. NBC doesn't want to waste valuable broadcasting time with a bunch of old gross politicians mugging down with their hairsprayed wives when they could be showing a bunch of young gross kids chowing down on worms for money.

The answer is simple: turn the Democratic primaries into a reality TV show. I don't know how they elect the nominee, but I know it has something to do with these primaries and numbers of delegates and so on. So clearly at some point, we'd have to obfuscate primary results so that there would be drama at the convention. But this could be great. After Gephardt was literally voted off the campaign trail last night, that would have been the moment for his scathing "confessional" to willing cameras. And then we cut to the winners confessionals, with Kerry dropping his F-bomb right and left. "FUCK YOU, Howard Dean!" and so on.

At the end, the final 3 or 4 candidates would all be at the convention, in front of a live audience (who can phone in their votes? no?). Donald Trump or Tyra Banks will sit them at the boardroom table (or spin them down the runway) and offer salient critiques of their campaigns, complete with vidoe snippets of embarassing gaffes. Then Donald Trump will fire somebody, Tyra will announce that so-and-so will not be America's Next Top President, the final two candidates will hold hands, and then Chris Harrison (of The Bachelor) will saunter on-stage, pause for like 10 unnecessary dramatic minutes, and then hand a red rose to Wesley Clark.

This will not only make exciting TV, it will cause the entirety of middle America to support the democratic nominee. Did Chris Harrison hand GWB a rose? I don't think so. Not the winner. And the Republicans can scramble and get Evan Marriott of Joe Millionaire to hand a sapphire necklance to Bush, but it will be too late.

I'm waiting for the call, DNC. I'm right here.