OKAY, THIS NEW REALITY SHOW strikes me as even dumber than its predecessors, if that’s possible:

“American Candidate,” which debuts in January on Rupert Murdoch’s FX network, rides the reality-TV bandwagon by staging a competition to pick a faux presidential candidate. The wannabes — with no official announcement, 5,000 people have already written in — will be whittled down to 18 finalists, all but one of whom will be voted off the political island through phone and Internet polls.

Of course, there’s this:

“A reporter said to me, ‘Do you mean to tell me our next president is going to be selected by television?’ ” Cutler recalls. But that, arguably, is what happens now. In other words, a process filled with fake media events and ginned-up publicity might illuminate how the real thing works — especially if it’s more interesting than watching Kerry, Gephardt, Edwards, Lieberman et al. trudge through Iowa cornfields.

Hmm. They’ll need a Simon Cowell type for the show. . . .

UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis thinks the show is brilliant. He also thinks I’ll be “gleefully quoting” its candidates. Well, you know, I said it was dumber than previous reality TV shows. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it will also be dumber than the real campaign. . . .