Amazing race

The end of the Writers Guild of America’s strike has arrived just in the nick of time. The finest, most entertaining reality show on television appears to have gone into a decline, despite the fact that there is still about eight and a half months left in its run. I speak, of course, of the 2008 presidential election. \nYou know all the civics textbook reasons for keeping up with the election. But, seriously, if you have not been paying attention, you have been missing out on a top-flight masterpiece of unscripted drama and humor. And while the most intense drama is still yet to come (the party conventions and the actual voting for president), like the audition episodes of American Idol, much of the election’s humor has been front-loaded. Examples have included the stories of Hillary Clinton being upstaged by her husband in the course of her December “likeability tour;” Mitt Romney struggling to get down with the hip-hop by saying “Who let the dogs out?” (complete with a “Woof woof!”); and, my absolute favorite, Mike Huckabee discussing the frying of squirrels a la popcorn popper.\nNot that some of the current plot lines aren’t great – particularly the Republicans’ religious conservatives having to come to terms with John McCain being their candidate and the down-to-the-wire fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (and the question of how the Democrats’ elite superdelegates will come into play). But couldn’t we do something to keep the humor going, too?\nI’ve come up with a few ideas to inject the “zing” back into the proceedings. Since we will soon be past the point when we can award immunity from elimination, I figure that, as an incentive, the candidates who successfully complete these tasks will be awarded the states with low numbers of Electoral College electors (after all, every little bit helps). \n• Guest mentors. Hillary Clinton’s bringing in Bill for advice was pretty amusing, but can’t we do better? For a week, we’ll team up the candidates with reality show veterans like Sean “Diddy” Combs, Martha Stewart, Flavor Flav, Carson Kressley and Anthony Bourdain. If they feel the candidates sufficiently followed their guidance, the mentors will have the authority to award North and South Dakota, respectively.\n• Candidate swap. For a day, the Democratic and Republican candidates have to campaign for each other – and must do it sincerely, without undermining their opponents. The most convincing job, as judged by a non-partisan panel of esteemed experts (I’m thinking the talking heads from Vh1’s “I Love The ‘80s Strikes Back”), wins Vermont.\n• Bug eating. Really, what is the point of a reality show without bug eating? Consuming the most bugs in three minutes gets you Rhode Island.\nOr, best of all, we could just start the primary season over again and bring back all the candidates who have been eliminated – and maybe some new ones, say Al Sharpton, Rick Santorum and Ralph Nader. After all, isn’t the campaign the best part of a presidency, anyway?