Some Thoughts About the Election...

... of our next American Idol. I am a big fan of reality TV. I'm such a big fan that I'm one of the five people who watched Real World/Road Rules: the Inferno. I can't get enough of these twenty/thirty/forty somethings who will humiliate themselves for cash. I watched the Apprentice, even the episode that aired when my Mom was in the hospital.
I enjoy the uproar that seems to happen every season when one very good contestant is voted off American Idol. Cries of racism, rigged phone lines and auto-dialing computers are published on many websites and in endless supermarket magazines. Even Elton John, who may not be elegible to vote in the American Idol competition since he's not a US citizen, cried racism when Jennifer Hudson was ejected.
It makes me laugh, in the nervous, uncomfortable sense when I watch the American public freak out because their vote(s) for La Toya London didn't get through because of overtaxed phone lines. This is the same American public who didn't put up much of a fuss when the election of 2000 was a little shady. Remember that the ballots were designed so poorly in Florida that old Jewish women were voting for Pat Buchanan? The contest that elects the man who will play a major part in policy-making for four years, the head of one of the three branches of government, the representative of the entire country was elected in questionable circumstances and people just shrugged it off. However, if a potential pop star gets voted off before popular consensus believes she should, Americans write in to People magazine to express their indignation and their conspiracy theories.
Perhaps election officials should steal one of the Ryan Seacrest cardboard cut-outs from AT&T Wireless stores to lure unsuspecting women and gay men into the voting booths in November. Maybe we should allow Simon Cowell a press pass for the DNC so he can hurl insults at John Kerry during prime-time. ("You call yourself a liberal? 'I'm not for gay marriage, but I think civil unions are great.' You're flip-flopping more than a surfer's footwear. Dreadful.")
George W. Bush could have Randy Jackson come by. "What up, dawg? Yea yea yea... you kicked that war's ass, dawg. The whole 'Mission Accomplished' thing was a little rough, dude, but you pulled it out in the end. Yea!"
Ralph Nader can have Paula Abdul come by, because they're both washed-up and a pain in people's asses.
If you'd like to see your United States political system in action, you can see the Democrats on July 26-29 at the FleetCenter in Boston. If you want to see the Republican Party, they'll be down in NYC at Madison Square Garden from August 30- September 2. If you want to see the American Idol tour with the top 12 finalists, they'll be at the Worcester Centrum on August 4. Democracy rules!