Who Wants to Be the President

It’s tempting to make fun of the idea as a cross between ”Survivor” and C-SPAN, a frivolous sideshow to the presidential campaign.
Which is why it’s a tad disconcerting when executive producer R.J. Cutler insists that his let’s-do-a-show-about-picking-a-presidential-candidate idea will be good for democracy (and presumably ratings).
”People are going to see how hard it is and have a new-found appreciation for what this kind of journey is all about,” he says. ”You’re going to see real leaders emerge.”
”American Candidate,” which debuts in January on Rupert Murdoch’s FX network, rides the reality-TV bandwagon by staging a competition to pick a faux presidential candidate. The wannabes–with no official announcement, 5,000 people have already written in–will be whittled down to 18 finalists, all but one of whom will be voted off the political island through phone and Internet polls.
”A reporter said to me, ‘Do you mean to tell me our next president is going to be selected by television?’ ” Cutler recalls. But that, arguably, is what happens now. In other words, a process filled with fake media events and ginned-up publicity might illuminate how the real thing works–especially if it’s more interesting than watching Kerry, Gephardt, Edwards, Lieberman et al. trudge through Iowa cornfields.
Cutler knows the political world, having produced the movie ”The War Room,” about the 1992 Clinton campaign, and ”A Perfect Candidate,” about Oliver North’s 1994 Senate race. Now he wants to take the same documentary approach with his own hand-picked contenders –and put it on a network that airs ”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer” reruns.
“We’re building a platform,” Cutler says. The candidates ”are going to have to demonstrate a serious commitment to this, to go out and campaign and get other support, write and present speeches. It’s not going to be enough to say, ‘Here are my wacky ideas; give me a chance to go on TV.’ ”
Unlike the real 2004 sweepstakes, the FX version will be big on ”diversity”–not just ideological and geographic, but racial and gender. In other words, there will be plenty of women running for president in the cable version.
Will they have to be really cute? “I want to say, no, we’re not picking the best-looking people,” Cutler says. But he hedges by adding that ”what attracts voters in a media age is one of the themes of the show. . . . We want an engaging, compelling, dramatic show.”
Early applicants include a PGA member in Indiana who said, “Isn’t it about time that the United States of America had a golfing president of which they could be proud?”
A 36-year-old New Hampshire teacher and disabled veteran declared: ”I am the common man, looking for an opportunity.” An Ohio zoning board member and Brownie troop leader described herself as ”a stay-at-home mom who occasionally represents children in messy divorce cases.” And a “dogmatic” Republican in North Carolina made this case: “I have an extreme love for my country and believe I would be representing all the quiet, dependable dads across the U.S.”
The producers could also spice things up by picking a couple of B-list celebs.
Since most aspirants will have limited bank accounts, FX will provide hotels and transportation (including Winnebagos for the last 10 contestants) and impose spending limits on any Ross Perot types. The Final Five will be assigned political consultants, and the cameras will record them in behind-the-scenes strategy sessions. Since it’s all on tape, the producers will be able to edit out all the boring stuff, a la MTV’s “real world.”
Cutler first pitched to HBO the idea of following a bunch of twentysomethings who want to run in 2012, but FX entertainment chief Kevin Reilly came up with the idea of staging a 13-week bake-off during next year’s primaries.
“There’s a wish-fulfillment aspect to it,” Reilly says. “In third grade, there’s always a kid who wants to be president someday. . . . We’ll very quickly weed out the truly ridiculous.”
The winner–who by that point will presumably have been on the cover of People–would be free to mount a real third-party campaign, though he or she would have to deal with such inconvenient details as fund raising and ballot petitions.
“It’s likely that this person is not going to be elected president of the United States,” Cutler says. “But their ideas will become part of the discourse. The person who wins this show is going to emerge as a real potential leader in this country. That’s triumph enough for the show.”
And if the “American Candidate” is treated as little more than a wonky version of ‘The Bachelor”? Well, it still beats eating worms on a desert island.