Taegan Goddard ponders the various schemes proposed to accommodate a GOP presidential "debate" field of roughly Rhode Island's population. He rejects them all as inadequate and wrongheaded — they're "intended to prevent the GOP presidential debates from becoming a political version of a reality show." Goddard then adds, "But when you think about it, what's wrong with that?"
Imagine if the debates were like American Idol, with candidates "performing" their answers to questions before a panel of "judges" — and ultimately the votes of television viewers across the country. At the end of each round, the poorest performing candidates would be "voted off" and wouldn't move to the next round.
Two thoughts occur. First, the GOP's 2012 primary season was precisely what Goddard pines for, as a novelty. It was nothing if not a reality TV show that made whoever the hell the Kardashians are seem socially relevant. (The other day I heard Bruce Jenner mentioned in reference to a particular Kardashian and I had to ask my teenage daughter what the latter had to do with an Olympic gold medalist. I regretted asking. From her I got an answer as astonishingly informed on the Kardashian family tree as a friend of mine — who, I kid you not, happens to be only 365th in line for the English crown — is on British royal lineage.) I've not seen "American Idol" or "Pawn Stars" or "Dance Moms" nor, as noted, have I kept up with the Kardashians. For the reality TV experience, I don't need to; the GOP's 2016 televised extravaganza hatched just as soon as its 2012 series got cancelled by 65,915,796 sane voting viewers.
The second thought that occurs is that of the new series' sponsors, which is to say, the Republican actors' sponsors. Never before has the phrase "To each his own" been fraught with so much financial weight. Trump (let's hope) can be self-financing, but Walker and Rubio and a man named Jeb and not improbably a dozen others will each have his or her own snorting Kochhead who, from sheer plutocratic power, can keep losers afloat and thus deny individual expulsion from the series. Will exquisitely objective Fox News really tell some mega-advertising zillionaire that Rick Perry is to be written out of the script because he came in behind Chris Christie? I think not.
Don't get me wrong. I very much like Taegan Goddard's proposal. It's just that we've seen it before.