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Blog Entry 27 of 27 The Donnanator Report

My favorite article topics have been soccer and healthcare issues related to my profession. I'm likely to keep focusing on those, and throw in social commentary and satire as necessary. There are plenty of health, nutrition and food behaviors just screaming for the kind of commentary possible with a blog, and who better to write those than a nutrition professional? I'm a big proponent of taking personal responsibility for health, and that philosophy will definitely influence my analysis of healthcare and health insurance issues. As for soccer, I've written about high school soccer, because that's what makes for good headlines, but clearly mainstream news organizations in the US need to improve coverage and analysis of all soccer, from local clubs to the World Cup.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~TheDonnanator

Voting: American Idol vs the primaries

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Contributed by: Donna Feldman on 4/24/2008

What with primaries, caucuses and American Idol, there's a lot of voting going on lately. You might not consider American Idol is "real" voting, but it's becoming clear there are plenty of similarities to the Democratic primaries. I'm writing this after Carly Smithson was lately voted off, as they say, last night. In fact, I don't think that's quite the right terminology. Being voted off implies people cast votes to remove her. In fact they cast votes in favor of other contestants. So she lost the vote this week.

Meanwhile the primaries go on in much the same fashion. Hilary Clinton wins this week, but lost weeks ago. She keeps resurrecting her campaign and clawing her way back by making speeches and spending money on political ads. American Idol contestants who find themselves in the dreaded Bottom Three (or Two now), but who escape outright elimination, try to claw their way back next week with redeeming performances. Or not. So far, Clinton has eluded outright elimination, just as the less talented Jason Castro managed to do last night on AI.

At the moment, Barack Obama looks like the Bottom Candidate du jour. So he'll try to rejigger his message, spend money on ads, and claw his way back to the top of some poll or primary. He's starting to remind me of the extremely annoying Brooke White. Ms. White can sing decently, but her main claim to fame is her long blond hair and her pouty, faux humility when criticized by the judges. Remember, she was previously a nanny. Any parent recognizes these mannerisms as the softball manipulation some adults employ to persuade kids to behave. I keep expecting her to wag her finger at Simon and send him to timeout one of these days. Then her cover will be blown.

Yet despite a disastrous performance this week, Ms. White escaped elimination. Carly, who gave a great performance, is eliminated, which is only slightly less idiotic than the elimination of Michael Johns 2 weeks ago. Ms. Smithson, lacks the long blond hair and pouty demeanor. Could the voters in America be swayed by something as shallow as mere facade? Gasp.

Facade hasn't hurt Senator Obama, who has gone far on appearance and demeanor. He's articulate and personable, but he hasn't presented a lot of hard facts about how he's actually going to handle the various issues. It's just a lot of fuzzy talk about hope and change. Yet that seems to be enough for a lot of voters. Fortunately he hasn't resorted to pouting yet.

Clearly, the only significant difference between American Idol and political primaries is that primary voters only get one vote. If you're a big fan of blond hair or dreadlocks, you can vote early and vote often for your American Idol favorites. Or you can do the same for contestants who can sing. In the end, I wonder if all this multiple voting makes no difference. Multiple votes for one cancel out multiple votes for another. Eventually, whether it's primaries or American Idol, one person wins the big one. Will talent trump facade on American Idol. We'll know in a month. As for the primaries, it remains facade vs. facade at the moment. Unlike AI, we don't get a chance to evaluate the talent until after the voting is over and the winner has been chosen. Now that's a weird system.

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Donna Feldman

Louisville , CO

Donna Feldman has posted 27 blog entries and 0 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Donna Feldman 's average blog rating is 4.6.

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