Styled as a variation of shows like Survivor and The Apprentice, a group of people whose only qualifying requirement is that they can be constitutionally elected President compete in a large variety of challenges over a 52 week (two years of episodes) period.
Such a candidate would have sufficient notoriety and name recognition to realistically compete with mainstream party candidates.-- theircompetitor, Jul 18 2006 American Idol vs. Elections http://www.maddogpr...ality_elections.htm [jutta, Jul 18 2006] Showtime: "The American Candidate" (2004) http://www.tv.com/a.../27789/summary.html [jutta, Jul 18 2006] The Decider. http://www.youtube....20decider%20%20%233Waffler! [Cuit_au_Four, Jul 18 2006] Trump set to moderate GOP debate http://www.washingt...IQAuMyrLO_blog.html [theircompetitor, Dec 03 2011] A variation of your idea. On_20Deck_20President_20ShowProbably should have just put it as an annotation. [doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2020] No worse than the current "who's got the most wedge" system. Possibly better.-- wagster, Jul 18 2006 Isn't this how we currently do it?-- DrCurry, Jul 18 2006 Wasn't born in the US, sorry. (And if they changed the rules, I'd be running against Arnold Schwarzennegger.)-- DrCurry, Jul 18 2006 Well, I'm thinking the challenges would be designed to improve upon current process. Maybe they'll scrap the primaries and adopt my system :)-- theircompetitor, Jul 18 2006 The embodiment of this often-made comparison pretty much aired on Showtime in 2004. That you don't know about that tells you just how little traction it got.-- jutta, Jul 18 2006 Interesting link -- and you're right, I had no inlking of it.-- theircompetitor, Jul 18 2006 I guess, Jutta, we're getting there now, it just took a couple of years.-- theircompetitor, Dec 03 2011 Jesus Christ, I'm definitely not paid enough.-- theircompetitor, Jan 18 2016 This would be a good way of identifying people who on no account should be allowed to become president-- hippo, Jan 19 2016 apparently :)-- theircompetitor, Jan 19 2016 Counting the current one, we've had 44. Not getting into the politics, how many you think could? Putting it another way, you can come up with the 10 best, or 10 consequential, right? What did the rest of them do, anything useful?
So long as they don't do damage, it's good enough. Of course several did create major damage, and the current crop is not immune to the risk.-- theircompetitor, Jan 20 2016 //Counting the current one, we've had 44//
Are you sure?-- Loris, Jan 20 2016 Me likey.-- Voice, Jan 21 2016 Isn't the presidential motto: Above all, do no harm? No wait, that's the medical industry. The president is allowed to harm. In fact it may be a requisite.-- whatrock, Jan 21 2016 I think it's been well established -- in my own mind at least -- that I have the most prescient ideas on the HB :)
However, as Trump's odds of testing positive increase, and as both his main rivals odds are also pretty high given campaign activity -- unless they kind of stop altogether, -- the Decider will become more like Deathrace 2020-- theircompetitor, Mar 14 2020 We'll vote for that ...-- 8th of 7, Mar 14 2020 I initially read this as "The De-icer", a TV show in which people complete folksy manual labor tasks (building a log cabin from trees, removing snow from a log cabin's roof in midwinter, harvesting potatoes, negotiating the sale of a wagon-load of the potatoes, trying to collect on crop insurance after a hailstorm obliterates the watermelon crop and the insurer leaves town, etc. etc.)-- sninctown, Mar 14 2020 This is brilliant, people would watch it and there's a chance that it could create a presidential candidate.
The corporate president pickers would not like this though. Getting public support is one thing, then you have to get the approval of the corporations unless you get in by accident because they don't take you seriously.
Which this show might be able to deliver on.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2020 Pre-Trump I commented on this. Now post-Trump, I have bunned it [+]-- wagster, Mar 14 2020 Here's the deal though, it really would have to hide the person's party because people vote for their tribe more than anything else.
Although people rooting for their political party candidate might make it interesting I suppose, same way people root for their football team.
Some gal came out with a book recently saying the "swing voter" is a myth, no such thing. Sometimes the two sides get more or less motivated according to this gal, but that's the only factor. People don't change their minds.
Sounds plausible.-- doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2020 I read a short story (I'll find title/author later & come back...) about this sort of idea (vaguely); but instead of just hiding the candidates affiliation (as per [doctorremulac3] above), the candidate's identity was secret too. So people had to vote purely on policy and stuff, not looks or popularity or where they went to college...-- neutrinos_shadow, Mar 15 2020 hmm 14 years for this cycle to mostly run its course.
I have a feeling though that beyond any surprises 2020 has left, 2024 is not going to be far behind...-- theircompetitor, Nov 08 2020 Well, at least we know who to blame for the last 4 years.-- FlyingToaster, Nov 08 2020 Took me a while to "come back"... "The People's Choice", by William John Watkins (1974). Can't find it online (although I didn't try digging in to Google Books).-- neutrinos_shadow, Nov 09 2020 random, halfbakery