American Elections Like American Idol

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American Elections Like American Idol

James Joyner | Thursday, March 13, 2008

John Cole offers example of bottom-up* YouTube videos for the Clinton and Obama campaigns that have gone viral and quips, “Someone is lucky elections don’t work like American Idol.”

He’s got an open thread on the subject but my initial response was, They don’t?

Turns out that there are two posts in the OTB archives, one from 2006 and another from 2007, on the subject:

American Idol Voting Parallels American Politics

What American Idol Tells Us about the American Electorate

The later is just a one-liner linking to Steven Taylor’s post “What’s Wrong with the American Electorate?”

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*Obama’s, at least, was produced by a world class professional and populated by major stars, so I’m not sure the comparison is apt.

About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.

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