Notes on the Republican Nomination Campaign

By Liz Elizabeth, former VP of Programming for the CW Network

With the first few weeks of the 2011 fall TV season in the books, it has become obvious that the Republican Presidential Nomination Campaign is the season’s biggest smash hit. Like American Idol and Who Wants to be a Millionaire before it, the GOP Campaign has seamlessly blended the drama of a high stakes contest with the emotional levity of real life. Already this year, we have seen the passionate crowds boo a gay soldier and cheer executions. The storylines are so intense, it’s like Days of Our Lives on steroids! No wait, that’s pro wrestling, but this has been almost as good.

No matter how fast it comes out of the gate, every show has to adapt to keep viewers interested. If the writers keep trotting out the same old storylines about social security and health insurance, the public will be sure to switch back to The Real Housewives faster than you can say “Town Hall Style Debate.” With that in mind, I have a few notes for the GOP Primary producers.

Immunity Challenges

My first suggestion is a tried and true moneymaker in reality shows like this one- the immunity challenge. Ever since Survivor grabbed the game show conch more than a decade ago, the immunity challenge has been a staple of elimination-based programming. The beauty of immunity challenges is that they can change from week to week to keep from becoming predictable. Maybe one week, all of the Republican Presidential candidates will have to stand one-footed on a small platform above a pit full of snakes and bugs. Or maybe the candidates will have to kayak across a lake, only to discover a 100-foot rope ladder on the other side that they have to climb to capture the immunity idol. You'll have to tune in to find out! You never know what kind of task they’ll have to compete, but you know you’ll be getting their best effort, because the loser automatically makes it through the next state’s primary. Move over TNT- it looks like the GOP knows drama!

[RIGHT- The Black Eyed Peas will be performing as musical guests at the next Republican Presidential Debate, as well as 14 other new fall TV shows.]

Lifelines
Even though everyone laughs at the occasional high profile gaffe, America is still a country that likes a winner. We want to get behind a capable leader and cheer for him or her as they ascend to the top. With that in mind, if we insist on grilling the candidates on such arcane subjects as foreign policyand history, it might make sense to give them better odds at getting things right. For example, everyone turned on Sarah Palin in the last election because she couldn’t name a Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade. It would have made better TV if Katie Couric had asked her which of the following was a Supreme Court case: (a) Kramer v. Kramer, (b) Man v. Food, (c) Plessy v. Ferguson, or (d) Versus Sports Network. If she still wasn’t sure, she could have polled the audience, or asked for the always pithy advice of Whoopi Goldberg in the center square. The way I see it, that format kills three birds with one stone: it gets the audience rooting for the candidate to increase emotional investment, it keeps the interview focused and on point, and it eliminates the silly gotcha question that only serves to give Michael Moore material for his next socialist propaganda rag (that’s why I like to call him the lefty Leni Reifenstahl). In other words, it’s a win win win. Or maybe a win win win win. I lost count.

Love Triangle
While the Sarah Palin-Glenn Rice intrigue might be enough sexual tension to pique the interest of that tiny minority of the party that approves of interracial relationships, it wouldn’t hurt to spice up the rest of the campaign. Now I’m not suggesting that they re-write the central plot of the campaign- the program will sink or swim on the strength of the Romney-Perry story no matter what-, but the Ron Paul Revolution is lagging as a C story arc. If it came out that he and Jon Huntsman had gone around the block with Michelle Bachman in the swingin’ 80s, everything would get a little bit zestier. Instead of reaching for the remote the next time he starts droning about the flat tax, the public can look forward to the sexually-motivated digs between the three of them. Maybe Bachman can tell Paul that he doesn’t “measure up” as a candidate. Maybe that’s a little too on the nose, but I’m not a writer. I’m just spitballing here.

Before I wrap things up, I should point out that I’m not a "political expert" per se. Still, if the Republicans want to keep their ratings up and get renewed for next year, they could do a lot worse than talking to me. After all, I’m the one who greenlighted phenomena like In Harm’s Way and Easy Money for the CW Network, so I think I know a thing or two about edgy, reality-based programming. By following this simple formula, the Republicans can accomplish the time-tested goal of being exactly like everything else that is on TV.

That, or they could just start talking about half of them are mormons.

STFU Hippie, Vol. 2: Anti-Bullying Campaigns

In the era of Bieber Fever and the tween controlled media, every major national organization has somehow simultaneously decided that our nation’s greatest civil rights cause is bullying. Organizations ranging from the American Bar Association to the WWE Universe have set up their own anti-bullying campaigns with the goal of, well, stopping bullying, I suppose. Every time I hear about an anti-bullying campaign, I ponder two very practical questions that I have not been able to answer: first, what exactly are these campaigns trying to eliminate? Second, is the stuff they oppose really a net-loss for society, or are adults so conflict averse that they would rather spend billions of dollars on these campaigns than tell kids that big chunks of life suck and they are going to have to deal with it? Wow, that was a run-on question. I’m proud that I remembered to put a question-mark at the end.

To answer my first question, I decided to consult the experts. I figured that StopBullying.gov would lay out what behavior they wanted to stop. When I click on “What is Bullying?” they tell me that “Bullying can happen anywhere: face-to-face, by text messages or on the web. It is not limited by age, gender, or education level. It is not a phase and it is not a joke. Bullying can cause lasting harm.” Hmm, that doesn’t answer my question. Those are places that bullying can happen and some characteristics that are not part of bullying. I’ll try clicking through to see if they’re a little more specific… “Bullying is a widespread and serious problem that can happen anywhere. It is not a phase children have to go through, it is not "just messing around", and it is not something to grow out of.” Once again, not particularly helpful, though I’ll be sure to remember not to grow out of it.

[RIGHT: Don't worry, little girl, it builds character.]

A-Ha! Dow the page, they tell me that bullying includes name-calling, spreading rumors, leaving people out, and various types of physical force. Wait a minute, that’s not a national epidemic, that’s any 10-minute segment of Fox News. Seriously, short of physical assault- which is illegal on its own- all of these things happen to everyone. All of the time. If you cannot deal with someone teasing you or spreading rumors that involve you, then you are woefully ill-equipped to deal with the stresses of everyday life and failure in general. If you are intrinsically unable to brush off insults, then you have deeper psychological self-esteem issues than David Schwimmer is going to solve in a 15-second “The More You Know” PSA.

I have a sneaking suspicion that everyone behind the anti-bullying campaigns knows that the people who are deeply affected by teasing or name-calling need much more help than they can give, so why waste all of that money on what amounts to a band-aide on a gaping chest wound? I think part of the explanation is that it’s such an amorphous PR campaign that it could never piss anyone off. So many people are constantly looking for a cause or something to be irate about that you can only really oppose something that can’t be pinned down. “Bullying” sounds like a real thing, but saying “hey, don’t bully anyone” is about as heroic as saying that you don’t like things that are evil. Instead, most bullying is a rite of passage that teaches you to laugh at yourself. Somebody steals your lunch money, gives you a wedgie, or calls you a pussy, and you feel embarrassed at first, but learn that life goes on.

Plus, think of all of the great achievements that are inspired by people trying to prove their bullies wrong. Martin Luther was bullied by the Catholic Church so he invented a little thing called Protestantism. Everyone made fun of Columbus for saying that the Earth was round. Imagine if he hadn’t been inspired by those bullies- we’d all be stuck in Europe watching soccer. Probably the best example of a great achievement inspired by bullying is when Daniel Larusso won the All-Valley Karate Tournament as retribution against the bullies from the Cobra Kai. Every hero needs a great foil to reach his fullest potential: Ali needed Frazier, Superman needed General Zod, and Larusso needed Zabka.

What’s getting lost in all of this is the real victims in all of the anti-bullying nonsense: the bullies. Imagine how badly the bullies’ feelings must be hurt by all of those anti-bullying bullies hurting the bullies’ feelings for hurting people’s feelings. Before you know it, we’re going to have to have an anti-anti-bullying campaign bully campaign, then another campaign about that campaign, and on to infinity like those Russian nesting dolls. Before this situation gets out of hand, I think we need to nip the anti-bullying campaigns in the bud and tell those hippies to shut the fuck up.