Paula Abdul takes what she can get.

My sister/roommate enjoys the show American Idol. I am not going to waste column inches mocking that show – but you must know that I find no cultural or aesthetic value in the program – and find it alarming that (1) more people vote on that show than for our leaders (2) I have become drawn in myself.

I love a disaster. Nothing beats someone else’s public humiliation to brighten your day. Many people espouse the idea that helping someone else or doing something selfless will brighten your day but I do that professionally and after a while, you need to mix things up. Someone falling on the ice or being involved in an injury free car wreck does the trick for me. With American Idol, I can sit on my couch and not endure glares from other rubber-neckers for pointing and laughing.

However, I remain alarmed at the fact that more people vote on American Idol than vote for President; that more people pay attention to the show than to what is going on in our world. I have come up with a plan to improve this situation.

In 2008, we will run the Presidential Election like American Idol. We will gather a triad of self-appointed experts and have auditions for the Presidency. Sure, Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton is smart as a whip, but can she sing and dance? What is Senator John McCain’s vocal range?

More important than their ability to entertain us, how Presidential are they, really? We kind of get this in the Presidential Debates but at that point the parties have already picked to people whose only qualification seems to be ‘nothing better to do with my time’ and ‘unqualified for gainful employment.’ I judged debate rounds in college for money and I saw some amazing debates – but the Presidential debates reminded me of Longview Community College verses ITT Technical School – the summation is that four people with Alzheimer’s could have had a more coherent conversation and come to a much more astute and reasonable conclusion. I know a good debate when I see one, and there has not been a good Presidential Debate in my lifetime. It is more than speaking pretty (Kerry) and more than staying on topic (Bush).

Then, the experts could boil the potential candidates down to two pools – twelve Republicans and twelve Democrats – and then we could whittle them down week by week until we had a President. Whoever came in second could be Vice-President. I am sure more young people would vote if they did not have to do arcane things like register and wait in lines. If you could just text in “HRC” or “JMC” you might be more interested in the process.

This could also bring up the benefit of drawing out other candidates. John Kerry was really just Bush-Lite but had we had real, entertaining exposure to the people who are Presidential Quality we could have realized that Russ Feingold not only voted against the war but was the only, ONLY, Democrat to read the prewar intelligence and is John McCain’s traditional bipartisan playmate. George W. Bush would never have won a nomination if he had to speak in public, unscripted around people like Christie Todd Whitman or George Pataki.

This process would draw out people who are not Rock Stars like Clinton, McCain, or Rice, and are just as qualified – if not more qualified.

If nothing else, this seems like it could work just as well as the process we use now. How could it be worse? We need to know that they are Presidential, unscripted and under pressure, and that they can sing, dance, and stand up to Simon’s taunting.

Comments

[Fi]

Have you ever actually seen/heard the quality of people that are voted winners on American Idol? You'd end up having your country run by David Hasselhoff (with the sympathy vote) or a chick with great tits! Better off just pulling names out of a hat.

Cheers
Fi xxx

[Margaret]

What a great idea. I have been a little drawn in to the program because of my teenage daughter. I like your take on the political process. Isn't it all a "song and dance?"

[Christopher]

Margaret is rarely wrong.

[liz]

I actually voted on AI once. My husband almost disowned me when he found out.