[...] you’re making the point that Bush, who was the runner-up in the 2000 election, [...]

Good grief dude. I am far from a Bush fanboy, but bringing this up totally blows away any credibility you might have had.

Sounds to me like the American voter got it right….

Politics is controlled by the two major parties through plurality voting and ballot access laws, as well as a myriad of campaign finance regulations that increase the cost of entry into the game. They’re helped by a media that tends to marginalize anything outside the mainstream (see Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Bob Barr), and tends to filter campaigns into their own preferred “story lines”.

Then, campaigns are driven by the party through the primary process, where party leaders tend to support or downplay certain candidates as they see fit.

At the end, when it comes to the Presidency, we’re presented with a choice between two bad candidates, and we in the libertarian side of the argument get to argue whether it’s best to choose the lesser of evils, vote on principle, or not vote at all, when in the grand scheme of things it’s the system that’s broken.

Maybe you’re saying that Taylor Hicks *WAS* chosen democratically by AI but then destroyed by the music industry. That’s what it sounds like. I could make the claim, likewise, that there are a lot of good people campaigning for public office, but then we still end up with the same bad policies. The rules of the system are greater than the individual players.

It’s clear that you [Brian] are a Taylor Hicks fan, and that you’re upset by the fact that the “system” has pushed him to the bottom. I’ll agree and disagree here. Personally I think Hicks would never be a big force for success in the face of mainstream pop/rock music, for the same reason that Sierra Nevada gets dwarfed in the marketplace by Budweiser. The American people want bland, familiar characters just like the myriad of others. That’s the same reason why they keep electing the same big-government stuffed suits to higher office.

The difference, of course, is that you can still buy a Taylor Hicks album, and I can still buy great craft beer, even if they’re tiny portions of the overall market. But in politics, it’s a winner-take-all system, and there’s NO way for me to opt out of the idiocy that McCain or Obama will enact.

Comment by Kiki — July 17, 2008 @ 6:02 am

Is that why I’ve heard Chris is called PWE(P*nis With Ears!)maybe? Sorry Chris couldn’t resist that !!!……Kiki the image you conjured up was hilarious….however, I digress….

American Idol is NOT based on democracy I will say again. The RIAA is owned by three of the biggest entertainment businesses in the world. Major shareholders are Sony BMG (Clive Davis) Universal and Warners. They own 80% roughly. As the RIAA have the grand job of awarding Gold and Platinum certificates on cd’s sold, it stands to reason that those three moguls are going to push their artists and sales before any of the little record labels who pay to be in the RIAA. The biggest farce was The American Music Awards. Shown on ABC TV that is owned by Disney who is owned by one of those three Entertainment Co. All the arists were owned by Sony BMG, Univeral or Warners. There wasn’t an independent artist to be seen. All the awards were carefully shared out so that the biggest shareholder Sony got the most, next came Universal and lastly Warners with the smallest share.

How can you apply this to politics?

Brian: This made me think of a brief (filmed) news report on a photo shoot of Clive Davis with the 2006 AI finalists, either before or after the Grammys that year. Taylor was in the upper left back. Clive Davis was seated in the lower right front, with Chris Daughtry seated on the floor next to him. All it needed was Chris’ head in Clive’s lap and Clive stroking his head — it was hilarious.

When Taylor won AI there was a lot of irritated rumblings from the three ‘top bunnies’Simon, Nigel and Clive D who were desperate for Chris Daughtry to win. Most years they had been able to sway the American public towards the one they wanted to win. This particular year people just liked Taylor and voted for him. Though Chris Daughtry has an excellent voice his rather arrogant manner put the general public off. Taylor blew the roof off the voting system beating even the Presidential election total.

That year the top bunnies desperately needed to break into the Rock market. They had suceeded beyond their wildest dreams with Carrie and broken into the Coontry market, now they had to break into Rock and Chris was their man. How could they do this when Taylor was irritatingly voted as the Idol? Record companies know exactly how to make or break an artist and they needed to get Taylor out of the way with his non-trendy soul singing. What better way than to sabotage his debut by allowing Daughtry to release their cd on the week normally reserved for the Idol. Taylors cd was delayed, they gave him no single, no videos, barely any promo except for a dreadful Ford Commercial and nothing was done to bring him to the publics attention again. He was effectively ‘shelved’ to make way for Daughtry and if the articles I have read on the net about the tricks used to create a false image of the star you wished to promote are true then Clive Davis is the master of them. He pushed Daughtry in everyones face all day on the radio, on TV with massive promotion and managed to make it seem that Daughtry were selling almost exactly 20,000 cds every week for almost 80 weeks instead of him gradually dropping down the charts as those without the CD sales scams normally do.
The record industry is rife with illegal practices and Taylor was a fly in the ointment. Simon Cowell has been blatantly rude about Taylor in interviews, telling contestants to stick gum on his face , when Taylor has NEVER spoken about AI with anything but respect. His face has been absent from the credits for the last two seasons. Daughtry has been invited to do all the AI work that Taylor should have done. All of this along with other cruel tricks have made it look as if Taylor has failed. Thank God he has bought himself out of his contract and is now suceeding his own way. What did he do to do to deserve this? He won AI when they didn’t want him too.

Maybe you will see all this as a paranoid Soul Patrol fan venting some imagined slight on their man. You couldn’t be further from the truth. If you had been party to some of the conversations about record label practices, that I have, you would know this is the only way to bring one artist down and build anothere one up. Maybe some of this could be applied to your politics. Truthfully however American Idol is not about Democracy and never will be.

I have much more respect for those that admit their ignorance and forgo the need to shade a box for every office.

Go one step farther. With Idol, I don’t care who wins, because I don’t have to buy their album. With the President, if you (and 51% of everyone else) vote for an idiot, I’m stuck living under his policies.

How can interdependence be consensual if people lack the knowledge and skills to be independent?

Read the 7 Habits for a good explanation. Independence is one of the steps on the way to becoming interdependent.

That said, in defense of AI sure people vote as many times as they wish; but when AI is on it is the most watched show on TV, and people aren’t counted twice in those numbers. All of those people have the opportunity to vote as many times as they wish. In 2006, the passion was with Taylor Hicks and so he won.