Forget debates and town halls. Forget appearances on late-night talk shows. And forget the electoral college. (Seriously, does anyone understand how the electoral college even works?)
If we want to truly get Americans involved in the electoral process and pick someone who will best represent we the people, we need to change the process. We need to have presidential candidates run for office in a way that Americans will understand and watch.
What we need is... a presidential reality TV show.
We can call the year-long reality TV show, The Amazing Presidential Race, with the election taking place during November sweeps. What could be more perfect for our talent-show-, Kardashian-, and Houswives-loving times?
But The Amazing Presidential Race would be more than just a political obstacle course. It should also include a test of knowledge, a la popular quiz shows, such as Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and Jeopardy!
So all candidates running for President would have to go on special week-long (or longer) presidential editions of both Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and Jeopardy! with Jeff Foxworthy and Alex Trebek, respectively, asking the candidates questions about U.S. History, European History, the Middle East, Economics, the Constitution, Math, and other topics that a fifth grader, or, really, a high school graduate, or someone applying for citizenship, or certainly someone running for President of the United States, should know, as well as more difficult questions. Wouldn't that be way more entertaining than what we have now?
Lastly, I propose a talent portion, a la American Idol, where each presidential candidate has to go before a panel of judges (think three Simon Cowells) and present his or her vision for America, which the judges will then critique and then we, the people, get to vote for, via Facebook, Twitter, some special app, phone, or text message. I guarantee candidates will get way more votes than they would have under the current system. And we would get a much better sense of what our candidates are made of.
So, who's with me?
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