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Reailty candidate show { September 21 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46413-2002Sep20.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46413-2002Sep20.html
Political 'Reality': Viewers to Pick 2004 Candidate
By Lisa de Moraes
Saturday, September 21, 2002; Page C01
Rupert Murdoch has finally found a way to get what he wants in Washington.
His cable network FX announced yesterday it has bought a TV series in which it gets to select a candidate for the 2004 presidential election.
"American Candidate" will allow TV viewers to choose their "people's candidate" over a six-month period, the network said.
The show was conceived by R.J. Cutler. He's the guy who produced the 1993 Oscar-nominated documentary "The War Room," about the '92 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton.
"Finally! Reality television is returning to its natural home," Cutler told the TV Column yesterday.
"Presidential politics is the Great Reality Television Platform."
"American Candidate" will have elements of "The War Room," Cutler told us, as well as elements of "American Idol," another reality series brought to us by a Murdoch network.
"We will be making available to every American who is qualified, the opportunity to run for president," Cutler said.
Just like Fox's "American Idol" made available to every American the opportunity to become a recording star. So long as they were young and hot and didn't do opera or anything like that.
Cutler partnered on the new project with Jay Roach (a good choice to help pick a U.S. president since he directed all three Austin Powers movies) and Tom Lassally. Lassally is another excellent choice since he was the Warner Bros. executive who shepherded the film "Dave," in which the fabulous Kevin Kline became U.S. president -- twice.
I'd definitely vote for Kevin Kline!
But Mr. Murdoch, alas, cannot run for president. That's because if you prick him, he bleeds Aussie. In 1985 Murdoch was made a U.S. citizen faster than you can say "station duopoly." That was right around the time he was adding to his U.S. media empire TV stations that a foreigner is not allowed to own.
Presidential candidates must, owing to that pesky U.S. Constitution, be natural-born American citizens.
That leaves Simon Cowell out as well. Too bad. I'd vote for him.
To vie for a chance to be crowned American Candidate, applicants must fill out questionnaires, make a video in which they explain why they think they should be picked -- kind of like those "Survivor" audition tapes -- and produce a petition signed by 50 supporters. That's 50 live supporters -- not Dudley Moore or Saint Paul, both of whom turned up on Mayor Tony Williams's petitions.
"We expect to receive thousands and thousands of applicants," Cutler said. "Each is going to be sponsored by 50 members of the applicant's community. We see this show as tapping into grass-roots politics. Word will spread and interest will spread and, as a result, galvanize not only the viewing audience but a broad cross section" of the voting-age population, he forecast.
A panel of experts -- I'm thinking Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, Shepard Smith and Sean Hannity -- will look over all the applicants and chose about 100 candidates. They will be unveiled in the first episode, which will debut in January 2004. Those candidates will square off in various competitions that, Cutler said, will test their "presidential mettle." The competitions will reveal the candidates' core beliefs, oratory skills, wisdom, stamina, leadership, family background, ability to answer multiple-choice questions, proficiency with Burt Bacharach songs and drugged-pig-killing skills.
A handful of presidential hopefuls will be whacked each week, based on a point system that factors in those competition results, the live audience's preferences, and telephone and Internet voting.
Each episode will originate from some location that just screams America, like Mount Rushmore or Gettysburg.
The final episode, which will be telecast right around the Fourth of July, will be an "American Candidate" convention, which Cutler hopes will be staged on the Mall here in Washington. Viewers will determine the winning candidate from three finalists.
The winner decides whether to actually run for president that fall.
Should he or she decide to go ahead, the producers will follow the candidate ˆ la "The War Room," and telecast the campaign trail in a weekly series right up until election night.
But, Cutler emphasized, "we won't be running them for office; we won't require them to run for office. We certainly hope they will choose to run."
And how will this made-for-TV candidate finance her campaign? Let us not forget that in the last presidential election, George W. Bush spend about $186 million and Al Gore not much less than that.
"They're going to have to figure that out," Cutler said.
"We're certainly not going to provide them. This show is going to function squarely within whatever finance regulations there are. That's why we are being very careful not to say our goal is to run anybody for office. . . . We know that a television show or a cable channel or a media organization cannot run anyone for office."
Of course, it might look kinda suspicious when the candidate promises that if elected she'll make sure a media company can own as many major league baseball teams as it likes and that the DirecTV/EchoStar merger will be declared unconstitutional.
And if this works and our made-for-TV candidate actually gets elected, who knows, we might even see Bernie Mac named secretary of state, Homer Simpson as energy secretary, Agent Mulder brought back to run the FBI and daily briefings held by White House Press Secretaries Brian Dunkleman and Ryan Seacrest.
And what becomes of the "American Candidate" winner who decides not to run?
"Maybe we'll give them a Winnebago," Cutler said.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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