"Should Ralph Nader worry? Now that the application deadline has passed for 'American Candidate,' Showtime's upcoming political talent show, the grimly resolute, semitragically staunch third-party contender might rue the day he didn't just mail in an application and kill the same bird with a stealthier, less overtly threatening stone. (It's too late anyway. Twenty-four semifinalists convened in Los Angeles last weekend to meet with the show's producers.)

No doubt 'American Candidate's' winner won't be getting any mortifying open letters from 'The Nation' trying to persuade him or her not to run. The magazine's Web site recently ran a banner ad for the simulated candidacy of 'American Candidate' hopeful and brow-grooming magnate Dal LaMagna, founder and CEO of the Tweezerman Corp., or so he writes in his Showtime-sponsored online campaign diary. Should he find himself among 12 finalists (they will be announced in June), LaMagna would go on to compete in the first televised, simulated political bake-off to coincide with the real thing.

The much-hyped 'American Candidate,' which landed at Showtime this year after having previously alighted briefly on two other networks, is the brash, uppity notion of documentary filmmaker and television producer R.J. Cutler, who produced the influential 1993 campaign movie 'The War Room' and directed 'A Perfect Candidate,' a chronicle of Oliver North's unsuccessful senatorial bid. ('A Perfect Candidate' was recently released on DVD.)

Should the show turn out the way Cutler hopes, it could accomplish much of what Nader would like to do in his third-act role as doomed presidential candidate, only more amusingly: expose a compromised electoral system, encourage non-pros to run, increase voter turnout and help break down financial and media-related barriers to seeking office.

Cutler is cagey on the subject of whether he hopes 'American Candidate' will produce a presidential one. (As Showtime's Web site diplomatically puts it: 'If a participant in `American Candidate' chooses to run for president, he or she will have to follow the same process and operate within the same laws and regulations that govern all presidential candidates. We anticipate that if a participant does run, he or she will be doing so on a write-in basis.') He says he hopes the show will raise public awareness about the electoral process, motivate more people to get involved in politics and get more people to the polls.

Over a 10-week period, the 'American Candidates' will hit the simulated campaign trail, traveling around the country pressing flesh, kissing babies and having their every move scrutinized by professional political consultants. At the end of each episode, America will vote someone off the dais. During the final two episodes, the remaining candidates will be pitted against each other in live studio debates.

On Showtime's Web site, each applicant is given a Web page on which to post a photo, keep a campaign diary and disclose his or her views on hot-button issues.

For all its exuberant overreaching, the conceit behind 'American Candidate' is less of a credulity stretch than the premise of 'The Apprentice.' In the real world, people get corporate jobs off-camera all the time. In presidential politics, the camera is the interviewer. Elections now play out almost exclusively on television, so presidential hopefuls craft their personas to fit the medium, as those who are really good at it transcend the political to enter the pop-icon pantheon. As Steven Stark wrote in The Atlantic Monthly about a biography of Edward Kennedy 10 years ago, 'Along with the flood of docudramas about the first brother, `The Last Brother' was yet another step in the transformation of the Kennedys from largely conventional political figures into pop-culture deities from the world of entertainment -- the cultural equivalents, perhaps, of Elvis Presley or the Jacksons.'

Ronald Reagan biographer Lou Cannon quotes the former president, 'an accomplished presidential performer,' as quipping, 'I don't know how anyone ever did this job who wasn't an actor.'

Cutler answers a few questions.

Q. Is 'American Candidate' a comment on the electoral system, a satire, a way to effect change or a prank?

A. I think it's everything, except I wouldn't say prank. But certainly the show is meant to comment on the process. We will show how the sausage is made. You will learn a lot about the way presidential candidates conduct their daily lives and the decisions that they make. And I don't even mean the big decisions. I mean the small decisions on what tone of pancake they put on their face before they go on the air.

Q. What types of things will it reveal that most people don't already know?

A. You'll see how opposition research is used, you'll see how advertising is used. When you then go back and watch the major party candidates going at it, you'll see them through a fresh lens. At the same time, our goal is to engage people in the process. In this country, only 50 percent of eligible voters bother to show up at the polls. And we'd like to find ways to engage the other 50 percent.

Q. Would more people vote if they could phone in their ballot directly to a TV show?

A. No, I don't think it's hard to vote. I think people don't vote because they feel disenfranchised. They don't vote because they think it doesn't affect them, because there aren't leaders who genuinely stir their passions. I think we saw that in the last election. They see lifelong politicians, wealthy, upper-class, Ivy League-educated white men who disagree on the narrowest of issues.

Q. Originally, the requirements for applying to be on the show were the same as the requirements for running for president. But later, you changed the age requirements. What prompted that change?

A. We wanted to open up the process. The whole philosophy of this show is to make the process available to those who don't otherwise have access to it. And during a political moment when Orrin Hatch and Teddy Kennedy both come out in favor of a constitutional amendment that would no longer restrict the office of president to those people who were born in America ... we started thinking maybe this will contribute to the debate. Maybe this will give an opportunity for people to see what it would be like for people under the age of 35, and citizens who aren't born here. And most importantly, maybe it will contribute to our principal goal, which is to discover new political talent and identify it and introduce it to the country.

Q. When is the deadline for getting on the ballot?

A. It's different in every state, and the rules are different, and it's very arcane. We're told that any little boy or girl can grow up to be president, but nobody would ever say that any little boy or girl could actually get on the ballot. It is the hardest thing in the world. I mean, talk to the people who ran Ralph Nader's campaign. The state governments are interested in Democrats and Republicans getting on the ballot. But basically, the deadline begins sometime in April and extends through the end of the summer.

Q. And then will the winner run?

A. I see the winner of this show influencing the presidential campaign more in the way he or she will represent an unheard voice of the people through interviews, through appearances on television, through a special that we will produce, in which the person will give a speech to the American public. Then they'll return home and launch their political careers." (Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2004)