TV Presidents

I don't write all that much about TV, because aside from the NFL, I don't like much that's on TV. Still, having seen the ads for the new Geena Davis presidential drama "Commander in Chief", I feel an urge to say a few things. The ads tells us, in big bold shocking letters, "A WOMAN WILL BE PRESIDENT". The ad makes it sound like a more remote prospect than it really is. I doubt that any Democrat will win the White House in 2008 (how many of us will Bush have to kill before the Democrats get their shit together? It's way past urgent, kids.), but among the field so far it looks like Hillary Clinton may have the best shot. There are other several female senators--Boxer, Feinstein, Mikulski, Granholm, Murray, Cantwell, Dole, and Hutchinson. Among them, Dole has already taken a shot at the presidency. There are also many female governors and House members. It's not a huge talent pool compared to the guys, but it is growing all the time.

The really remote prospect, a favorite convention of the more gutless species of TV writers, is an Independent Vice-President ascending to the top job. What color is the sky in their world? There are, at this moment, no independent governors. We have one independent senator--ex-Republican Jim Jeffords of Vermont, who became an Independent because the White House insisted on treating him like something the cat dragged in. He caucuses with the Democrats. There is an independent House member, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a lovely freedom socialist (bless his Eugene Debsian heart) who also caucuses with the Democrats. (There's something about Vermont. It must be the syrup.) The bench is awfully shallow there, as it always has been for 3rd party types. And further, why would a hard-line conservative administration choose an independent at all? If tacking to the middle is an issue, and it hasn't been for national Republican campaigns in a while, why not use one of the northeastern moderates that the party keeps around as pets? How do you think Colin Powell ended up as Secretary of State? Because he would bring a strong credible voice to foreign policy? Don't be silly. He was there so that people could look at the Bush cabinet's group picture and say, "Any administration that has Powell in it can't be all that crazy or incompetent." The Republican party still has enough of those guys lying around that they don't really need an independent whose loyalty might be less reliable.

TV writers love political independents for shows based in D.C. It doesn't automatically piss off half the audience, and allows the lead character to seem like a throughtful, good-hearted public servant who struggles against all the nasty partisan politics in Washington. (That many political independents, like Jesse Ventura and Ross Perot, turn out to be cranks fails to register with them.) Partisan=bad. Moderate=good. Focus group tested and family approved TV, as bland as plain nonfat yogurt mixed with Wonder bread. Gutless, cheap, predictable, and unwilling to take a stand. Tired.

The West Wing has its own problems as far as the Republican party is concerned. The Republicans in that alternate universe nominated a centrist agnostic as their candidate, and the show portrayed him as a preordained juggernaut. I guess the Christian Right vanished into that other alternative universe where Spock has a beard. The Alan Alda character would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever get within a thousand miles of the Republican convention hall. He would be the sort of person in the party whose very existence would be denied. Agnostics rarely get elected to anything in this country. Churches are just too big a part of the organizations of both parties to allow that to happen. The Alda character is a non-threatening Republican for a show whose audience craves a weekly escape from the world where Bush is in charge, but his stature in the fictional Republican party strains the willingness to suspend disbelief. I can understand the desire, the deep desire, to imagine a different world from the one we inhabit, but this is a situation where the reality-based community needs to get real.