I did it and I admit it.  I watched American Idol.  It was the first season that I actually watched almost every episode... which I did with my kids.  It was our weekly 'family' show and was great incentive for the kids to finish all of their homework, projects, piano practice and getting their rooms cleaned.

The final episode just finished and I was amazed with the number of votes that were cast... over 90 million votes!  That's alot of votes and it made me curious.  How many people vote for our president?  Now I know, it's not really comparing apples to apples since you can vote over and over for your Idol (although, there are people who probably do this for the President as well) and children and pets can vote for Idol, but it still made me curious so I did some checking.

It seems that American Idol is receiving almost as many votes as the US Presidential Election and if you go back just a few elections, American Idol received MORE votes.

So here is my proposal for a new reality show competition....

"American President" 

• Each week would focus on three sections for all of the following ideas.  The three sections would be 'republican', 'democrat' and 'independent'.  The show would run in two phases.

Phase 1

• We start a few months prior to the election and have anybody that is interested in running gather in a local arena.
• One by one, the 'contestants' are brought into a room where they audition.  They have five minutes to tell the 'panel' what they would do as president.
• The 'panel' would consist of the prior two presidents and Paula Abdul. 
• The 'panel' would decide if the candidate was qualified and would move on or would get laughed at and kicked off the show.

Phase 2

• Phase 2 would commence once we have 10 potential republicans, 10 potential democrats and 10 potential independents
• Each week there would be a theme such as 'health care', 'Iraq', 'the budget', 'attractive women and men', 'your favorite cigar', etc....
• The contestants would have a set amount of time to come out and tell their stance on that subject
• The 'panel' would then critique the responses.
• At the end of the show, the phone lines would open and America gets to vote.
• The lowest vote getter is kicked off of the show.
• The process would continue until we have our new President.

Personally, I still think American Idol would get more votes.  What a sad commentary on American values.

(* Statistics found at http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/)
(Picture courtesy of http://paulding.blogspot.com/2008/04/american-idol-and-late-night-jokes.html )