Strange Opportunities: When Reality TV and Politics Collide

In what could be the most unholy union in recent television history, Mark Burnett (Survivor, The Apprentice) is teaming up with Rupert Murdoch (Fox, MySpace) to create a reality TV series about politics. The show, called "Independent," will feature ordinary Americans campaigning for the votes of viewers through what sounds like a combination of online organizing and offline televised events. It will run during the later primaries and the "dead zone" between the primaries and the nominating conventions. The winner will receive $1million which they must give away or use to run for office.

This has been tried before. During the 2004 election cycle, Showtime ran "American Candidate," which featured 10 contestants in a political Battle Royale judged by industry "experts." It didn't get a lot of attention (probably because it was on Showtime), but it had some interesting candidates, at least one of whom has been a huge participant in the progressive youth movement.

What's different about "Independent" is the cash money at the end - which must be used at least semi-philanthropically - and that the show sounds like it will be truly "cross-platform" - on both MySpace and network television. It's easy to sneer at this - it is a Burnett/Murdoch production, after all - but I'm hopeful for this program. I can see a couple positive outcomes, and a big chance for progressive youth groups here.

There are tons of possibilities:

• Get someone like Malia Lazu nominated as a candidate to speak to and for young voters. If (s)he wins, that cool million could be spread out among a lot of progressive youth orgs
• We could nominate someone truly progressive - almost radically so. Say someone who runs a specifically anti-drug war campaign. Imagine teaming up that candidate with someone like Howard Stern to swing voters (a la Vote for the Worst) and giving the prize money to Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and the Drug Policy Alliance
• Who knows what other issue important to young voters the Democratic candidates might ignore through the course of the primaries. Get a candidate nominated to speak specifically to that issue with the purpose of influencing the real candidate's position.

There are lots of possibilities here depending on how open the nominating/"casting" process is, and the willingness to put together a coalition of youth groups to do something as simple as direct their members to vote for a single candidate. The really interesting outcome here might not be how the show mimics our political system, but how quickly our political system incorporates the show as just another piece of the existing media environment.

The other interesting thing to look for is how to mix online and offline politicking on a tactical level. I'm willing to bet that the folks who get nominated could end up creating some pretty ingenious uses of MySpace in service to their campaign. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Democratic and Republican candidates taking lessons from these contestants before the show was over.