Reality TV Show Idea: Presidential Candidates Forced to Live on Minimum Wage

My basic problem with Reality TV shows is that none of them bear any relation to reality. In addition to placing contestants-and let’s face it, these shows are really nothing more new than the old-fashioned game shows that have been a mainstay of television since its earliest infancy-into decidedly melodramatic and unrealistic situations, they are also nearly as scripted as any sitcom or drama. Therefore, I propose the first Reality TV show that truly is deserving of the name.

I’m sure it’s all rather fun and self-serving in its own way to watch Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie playact their way through suburbia or wherever their Reality TV show takes place. I’ve only seen brief snippets of it myself, but I imagine the entire show is pretty much just an extension and replay of the snippets. But instead of taking two remarkably uninteresting and, well, unnecessary human beings and creating drama and humor by writing them into phony Green Acres type situations, how a Reality TV show that genuinely places a vital member of the upper class into the minimum wage world in which people live?

My idea for a Reality TV show would not only be entertaining, but educational. More than that, it just might finally be the trick to turn the US government from a plaything of the elite into a power base of the majority. My Reality TV show would only take place every four years, of course, but it would be a nightly broadcast and I have no doubt that it would annihilate everything in its path in the ratings. You see, my Reality TV show would require that the two Presidential candidates no longer campaign for votes across the nation. They wouldn’t have to. After all, what is a campaign but a bunch of memorized speeches, sound bites and photo opportunities. We all know we can’t learn anything substantive from a candidate during a campaign. Look at all these people who are now saying about Bush, “If only I’d known that during the election.” Therefore, let’s replace the state to state campaigning with a Reality TV show. After all, more people voted in the American Idol contest than in the Presidential election.

But there’s more. This Reality TV show wouldn’t be a show about two guys campaigning for the job. Most people already know who they’re going to vote for long before election day. This Reality TV show is about showing people just how in touch with the common man these guys who routinely claim such a thing really are. How does it work?

The candidates, whom we know will be richer than Mr. Burns nobody who they turn out to be, will be dropped into a small town. They will not have access to their millions, but will be required to get a job. Not just any job, mind you, but a job that pays minimum wage. They will be required over the course of time between the conventions and election day to take care of their spouse and any children they may have only on their minimum wage salary.

In addition they will be required to buy a car, insurance, pay rent, shop for groceries and everything else that most people in American are required to do, and all on a minimum wage salary. Those rich folk in Congress-well, the Republicans anyway-have deemed the current minimum wage sufficient enough for people to make a living on, while giving themselves pay raises each of the last five years. Obviously, we are dealing with out of touch people. My Reality TV show provides not only an abject lesson in, well, reality that our politicians sorely need, but will also provide countless hours of entertainment as we watch a candidate’s wife who is use to shopping at Gucci be forced into buying her shoes at Payless.

What could be more entertaining? And real?