I’ve been racking my brains for the perfect reality show idea to pitch to local TV stations. I’m convinced that a day-to-day, behind-the-news look at my zany co-workers in the Observer’s editorial department would be a ratings bonanza, and many of them agree with me. It would be fun, I think, for the public to see the real people behind the front-page news stories that keep the nation talking, to witness, first-hand, their inter-personal and professional interaction — the light-hearted moments and those unguarded moments fraught with tension — and how both intersect to produce news. That spectacle would be scintillating TV.

But I live in the real world. Sponsors would be hard to find; who’d want to invest in us? Celebrities now — big-ticket ones, especially — are really where it’s at, n’est pas?

Celebrity reality TV shows. Personally, I die for the Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo. Like, go bananas for it. Can’t get enough of it. I love watching all the fashion, but let’s be quite honest here: the shenanigans of the main players keep me riveted. Nobody’s changing the world on that show; there’s nothing high-brow about it, but the human drama is excruciatingly fascinating. God help me, so caught up was I in last week’s episode of the new season that I found myself actually chewing my nails as I worried if Rachel was going to find five suitable dresses for her five celebrity clients in time for the Golden Globes. I kept my fingers crossed that Brad could deliver as the replacement for the ousted Taylor and for the new girl to choose the right dresses and not crack under the strain. You may snigger but I turned the ringer off of my home phone. Being the personal stylist to the stars isn’t only stressful for team Zoe: it’s stressful for obsessed voyeurs like me.

And, speaking of reality. One promising event for a reality TV show I’d pay to watch is the Wyclef Jean bid for presidency of Haiti. It has all the right ingredients, I think, including the lynchpin: a foundation that is so grotesquely and obscenely far from reality as to be nothing short of ridiculous. I would love to see what brought the hip-hop star to the point where he said to himself, ‘I’d make a good president.’ Seriously. What I can’t work out, just from the fragmented bits of interviews he’s granted, is why he’s thought to equate himself with Barack Obama. What are Wyclef Jean’s qualifications to efficiently govern the hemisphere’s most impoverished nation? Gold-selling records and some Grammy awards? His popularity, as he claims, among the youth (people under 25) of Haiti? If that was the case, someone should tell Vybz Kartel to assemble a crack team of handlers and throw his hat into the ring for when elections are eventually called in Jamaica. God knows, if Betty-Ann Blaine can do it…

‘Yes, We Can’ isn’t simply a slogan to be repeated willy-nilly. Yes, you can… if you’ve prepped yourself. You don’t go into an exam without studying for it and say, “Oh, yes, I can.” No, you can’t. You’re not prepared. Similarly, running a country isn’t based on unrestrained optimism; it’s not an easy thing to do. Just ask our dear PM, Mr Golding.

A desire to see better for the people of his birthplace is what obviously is driving Wyclef Jean’s candidacy. All well and good. But well-wishing does not a political candidate make. Governing a country isn’t based on pipedreams and noble good wishes. In a recent interview with CNN, Wyclef claimed he would make education, health care and job creation his priorities. After he’s brought rapper 50 Cent down for a massive (free, I assume) stage concert, that is. Indeed, these things have eluded that nation for successive governments since the Duvaliers. But if ‘Clef is depending on the largesse of the international community to make good on the $10 billion worth of pledges made in the wake of the January earthquake that practically flattened the country, he can think again. President Bill Clinton, a man with the sterling reputation of being a roving goodwill ambassador par excellence with the ability to do just about anything except perhaps walk on water, has lamented the fact that he cannot get countries to pay up these pledges. So how would Wyclef fund all his ambitious projects for a country with no resources? (Aid alone, or even promises of aid, won’t put Haiti back together again. If that were the case, our minister of finance would be cruising after we got the green light from the IMF.)

I’m sorry, if no one else will say it, then I will. Wyclef, despite being Haiti’s most famous son, lacks the political clout and wherewithal to take on the complicated mess that is Haiti.

Still, a reality show with Wyclef would be great, no? Especially if they invited Sean Penn as a guest star in one episode. I’d love to witness Wyclef’s response when Penn challenges him face-to-face about his negligent stewardship of the money collected for the earthquake relief from his Yéle Haiti charity, from which he recently resigned. How in God’s name can you manage the finances of poor Haiti, Mr Jean, if you can’t, as the allegations go, account for all of the $9 m raised by your own foundation to help the very people you want to govern?

I can just see the fireworks now in my mind’s eye: Sean Penn sneering and Wyclef’s lips trembling as he bursts into tears, the way he did when trying to explain away the earthquake money scandal. And, while we’re at it, maybe he could say just how he plans on compensating fans for the $16 spent on 2000’s The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book CD. (Kenny Rogers, ‘Clef? Really?) Ray! Ratings gold! The only drawback would be that the series would presumably run for one season only, that it would not return for another because Wyclef would have been ignominiously defeated at the polls. But what do I know? Sonny Bono, another musician-turned-politician, did it; he became a US congressman. And Martha Reeves, long after Martha and the Vandellas, became a Detroit City councilwoman. Maybe Wyclef’s dreams will come true; his candidacy will be approved and he’ll eventually become president. Maybe mine will come true, too: I’ll get my Wyclef show. Who knows? Truth, after all, is stranger than fiction.