Inside the Idol circus

If you can’t wait until Thursday night to find out who American Idol’s Top Twelve finalists will be, our special AI psychics can relieve you of the suspense. (Note: This information is not provided for betting purposes).

Of course, there are other sources that claim to have unique insights into how America will vote. Las Vegas, for example, has odds on everything from “How old will the American Idol 6 winner be?” to “Will a contestant throw up on stage during American Idol 6?”

According to one Vegas site, Lakisha Jones is the odds-on favorite to win, followed by Blake Lewis and then Sundance Head.

If you’d rather go a more ‘scientific’ route, DialIdol.com claims to use an analysis of busy signals to figure out how much support each contestant is getting from voters.

It has a mixed track record though—last week predicting only one of the four booted contestants (heck, even I was able to do that).

However, the site historically does a pretty good job of revealing which contestants have built big followings. Last year, it showed Taylor Hicks with a giant lead over everyone else, a lead that held up all the way through the finals.

This year, it has Melinda, Lakisha and Antonella out front for the women, and Sundance and Sanjaya out front for the guys. Which makes it less surprising that some contestants have managed to stick around despite less-than-stellar performances and reviews from the judges.

Votefortheworst might have something to do with how Antonella and Sundance have developed such big fan bases. It’s always worth checking out who the site’s thrown its muscle behind, as in past years it’s played a role in keeping the likes of Kellie Pickler, Kevin Covais, and Scott Savol around, perhaps past their rightful time.

The poster child for someone whose stay on AI long outlasted their abilities is, of course, Jasmine Trias, who rode the combination of rabid home state voting (Hawaii) and her significant non-singing charms to the final three.

If you wanna know which contestant has the most rabid, vote-500-times-a-night fans this year, check out how many messages everyone has under their name on FOX’s official AI discussion board

As has been true all season, Blake leads with 18,830 postings; followed by the controversial Antonella, wisecracking Chris Sligh, and intriguing Sanjaya.

None of this, of course, has much to do with pure singing ability to this point, in which case most impartial observers would put Lakisha and Melinda at the top of their list.

But as I keep saying—it’s American Idol, not American Singer. Part of the criteria for winning AI is the ability to get people excited, for whatever reason. (Maybe Britney should give the contestants a tutorial?)

As P.T. Barnum said, "I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right."