The “American Idol” Poll You’ve Been Waiting For: Which David Delivered Tonight’s Knockout Punch?

noah | May 21, 2008 1:00 am

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The first third of the American Idol finale is in the history books everywhere in the country! (Except maybe Hawaii, although maybe not–after all, since the weather there is so nice it would make sense to have “prime time” at 5 p.m. so as to maximize the enjoyment of their evenings.) The three songs have been sung, the songwriting contest has once again been exposed as a way to get America’s worst songwriters more screen time than they ever deserve, and the judges have seemingly abandoned David Cook–or decided to engage in major reverse psychology with his fans in hopes of really giving Jeff Archuleta a Montreal screwjob-type finish to his super-meddlesome “guardian” tenure. Who knows what sort of mind games the producers are trying to play! I’ve watched pretty much every second of American Idol since January and I still don’t. Anyway, after the jump we have the official Idolator “Who Will Win Idol?” poll, along with a few predictions from other corners of the Internet and clips from tonight’s show.

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Honestly, I have no idea who will win. On MJ’s Blog there are lots of reports of busy signals for David Cook, and reports that Dial Idol, which has been pretty slammed all evening, is firmly in the green for him–but these reports are all coming way before the West Coast strongholds have really gotten into the thick of voting. For those of you who were having some sort of life from 8-9 p.m. in your local time zone, here’s video of each contestant’s strongest performance:

David Cook’s Collective Soul song, which, upon further review, was a strong performance and pretty much thrown under the bus by the We Love Archie crew:

And David Archuleta’s “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me,” which showed off the George Michael-ish aspects of his vocal tone and wasn’t watered down for religious purposes:

David Cook – The World I Know [Redlasso] David Archuleta – Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me [Redlasso] [Videos via MJ] Earlier: Live-Blogging The Finale, Part I