How Did It Happen?

I'm a pretty consistently casual American Idol fan. I never watched an episode til last season, but I haven't missed one since (not counting the increasingly dull and repetitive episodes before they get to the final 24). But I'm not rabid about it. I think I have voted 3 or 4 times ever, and I often watch the episodes on my DVR a day or two after they air rather than live.

I think what I enjoy about the show as much as anything is the theoretical aspects of the voting and the show's popularity. Can you imagine the Vegas odds on Elliott, Taylor, and Katharine's being the top 3 if people had been asked when there were 24 (or even 12) contestants?

When Chris Daughtry was eliminated on Wednesday, I (who have been fairly neutral about Chris, neither loving nor hating him) was fascinated by the reactions of friends--particularly my brother, who is the most faithful AI watcher I know. I'm fairly certain he has never missed an episode since the show's inception, and he even made it to the top 50 or so contestants two seasons ago during the tryouts in Atlanta (not making it to Hollywood, though, but still pretty decent considering the thousands of people who auditioned that day). But Chris' departure made him approach the point of being ready to quit watching the show (not likely to happen, but said in the heat of the moment after the elmination).

The common explanation I have heard since Wednesday is the typical argument whenever there is a "shock" elimination, that Chris' fans became over-confident and didn't vote as they should have. Now, while that may have played a small part in the voting, something about the argument didn't seem right to me. Perhaps if a popular person gets eliminated when there are 8 or 10 contestants left, but who would be over-confident when the field of contestants is so narrow?

Still, I did not have a good alternative explanation until today. This New York Post article gives a great explanation that I think has a lot of merit. It's worth the read, but essentially the author, John Podhoretz, says that the AI voting is similar to the presidential primaries in American politics. When one candidate drops out of the race, his supporters don't just stop participating (since they are still interested in the political process); instead, they latch on to another candidate. In the same way, AI fans who supported say, Paris Bennett, for the most part did not stop voting when she got eliminated a week ago. So, where did they go? As Podhoretz says, if you loved Paris, you probably were not a big Chris fan. So, as likely happened with the elimination of Ace Young and perhaps even Kellie Pickler to some extent, Elliott's support base grew because of his appeal's being more broad-based than Chris'. Consequently, each week, although he hasn't been the most flashy performer and although he has bad teeth, Elliott has grown stronger and stronger, and now has a good chance of winning the whole competition (particularly if Taylor Hicks suffers from the same problem as Chris....the big question now is, where will Chris' votes go?)

One final note, I'm a sucker for sentimentalism, but I happen to be pretty fond of Paul Abdul. People laugh at her shows of emotion when she cries about the competition, but I think she's a pretty genuine person, and I like what she said in an interview Wednesday night: "People can make fun of me all they want, but I care so much about all these kids. They’re the most humble, grounded, amazing group. I think they all deserve [to win]. I would be happy to have any one of them as my kids."