One of them is clearly more entertaining television -- who wants to watch the vice president's dull daughter talk about her dull dad?

--but they're really the same show. There's not much difference between Rich's alliance and the political system, even down to the apathetic voter who doesn't care enough to do what is sensible.

On TV's ratings-monster island, things got nasty a few weeks ago. With the truly lazy and annoying people already gone, it was time for the primaries. Just as in April, the best people for the job came in second. As the Republicans dismissed John McCain, the Rich party said goodbye to Gretchen -- an early favorite to win, a hard worker, a genuinely good person, and even a military veteran. She found it incredible that she was voted out so early. But any popularity contest can be turned around, if the other side fights dirty enough.

The next week the Rich party played Democrat and got rid of Greg

--also nice, hard-working and very smart in an unassuming (Bill Bradley) kind of way.

This is where we viewers were hoping someone could stop the evil before it was too late. The problem was Sean.

In real life, I'm guessing he's not a registered voter. On the island, he didn't want to decide whom he likes and dislikes, so he voted alphabetically. Not only did he insist on adhering to this ridiculous system, he let it be known one week that his next victim would be Jenna.

Jenna is the Ralph Nader of this story. She's everything that's good and pure. She did her share of the work without complaint. She loves her kids. She tried to organize an alternative party to stop the Riches. Amazingly, her upstart little party looked like it had a shot. Kelly, a young woman who had been voting with Rich, realized maybe she'd been allied with the wrong group and decided to follow her heart instead of the party line.

But the plan unraveled because Sean was too stupid to realize how important his vote was. The Rich alliance knew his vote plus their four would be enough, so they voted off Jenna.

Then the main political party proceeded to get rid of all the nice little people who weren't on their side. Kind of like the politics in America. While the island of ``Survivor'' has only one party and America has two major ones, it all boils down to the same thing.

In my home state of Minnesota in 1998, when the incumbent Republican governor decided not to run, the Democrats put up the grandson of a famous politician (Hubert H. Humphrey III) while the Republicans offered the mayor of St. Paul (Norm Coleman). The voters, tired of bickering partisan politics-as-usual, surprised the world by electing Jesse Ventura of the Reform Party. Say what you will about the feather boas from his pro-wrestling days, he's getting it done as governor.

In a rational world, where people think about their vote instead of blindly following their party leaders, Al Gore and George W. Bush would have less of a chance in the upcoming presidential election than Humphrey and Coleman did in Minnesota. Of course, in a rational world, Ralph Nader would be eligible for federal campaign funding and allowed to participate in the presidential debates.

Vote with your heart, and your brain. And let's all be glad that in this election, the Seans who don't care won't be there to screw it up for everyone.

On tonight's finale, millions of Americans will watch to see whether it will be Kelly, Sue, Rudy or Rich (no one ended up in the final four except the members of the alliance) who wins the grand prize. But in the bigger election -- can't we stop the Riches?

Linda Houser is an editor on The Chronicle's local news desk.

©2000 San Francisco Chronicle

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