das Monkey

I don't know what I expected with this show, but I was really hoping it would be more than a silly elimination-style reality show. Not one of these people seems even remotely qualified to run for President, let alone be one. I mean, when Gephardt's daughter can't even get 150 people to show up at a rally when both her father and Pat Kennedy show up to support her, that's just sad. And the guy who barely got 50 people ... wow. Not only was he a terrible speaker without much of an opinion on the issues, but 50 people? That's pathetic.

What really annoyed me about this show was that half the candidates were "activists." Come on. Unless you're obsessed with a specific cause, who wants to vote for someone with a one-track mind like these people? Elected officials should represent a spectrum of views, and the President in particular needs the ability to delegate and lead. I don't know if it's just the way the show was edited or not, but it sure seemed like it's just a bunch of one- (or two-) issue folk: the gay guy, the pro-choice lesbian, the PETA/Vegan guy, the Veteran lady, the anti-Gay Marriage guy, the anti-Brady Law guy, etc. Like I said, it could just be the editing, but these "candidates" don't seem particularly deep.

I may keep watching, but this definitely was not what I expected.

das

Roto

I left it on for about 2 minutes to see what it was about because I was waiting for Dead Like Me to come on. I just dont see the purpose of this show. I wasn't paying very close attention, but are they really just pretending to be running for President? What does the winner actually get? I have a real presidential campaign to watch, and that's boring enough. I couldn't sit through it because it just sounded too pointless.

das Monkey

I guess it's contractual, but they always said, "I'm running for the American Candidate" but then it's talked about in terms of running for the Presidency. The winner gets $200,000 and the title of "American Candidate" but there was no mention of an effort to get this person on a ballot or anything. It was all pretty silly.

das

Roto

You don't like the candidates, there isn't a whole lot at stake as far as the contest goes, there most likely won't be much if any swearing or nudity even though it's on Showtime, and it probably won't be 1/10th as exciting as the Otterville presidential campaign, yet you may keep watching it?

I think it's time for an intervention.

das Monkey

[Vader] It is my destiny ... [/Vader]

das

Shannon Nutt

When SHOWTIME first announced this project, it was only going to consider people who were actually ELIGIBLE to run for President (35 years or older) and was going to let the winner choose if he/she actually wanted to run with a public announcement on the final show (Showtime couldn't officially endorse a person because of election laws and TV rules about equal time).

However, about halfway through the application process, they decided to turn it into some dog & pony show - asking for candidates 18 or older and encouraging people to be "original" with their submissions...in other words, they whored out a good idea looking for more odd characters and higher ratings.

Roto

It could've been an interesting/scary idea if they did the original idea on network tv.