American Idol begins tonight: Who'll be picked to win this year?

Next Tuesday night is when American Idol runs the show about the auditions that took place here in Greensboro this past fall. I'll admit to being morbidly curious as to how many bad singers came out of this town (the auditions here replaced those that were going to take place in Houston had that town not been swamped with Hurricane Katrina refugees). But otherwise I'm not watching, because there's so little doubt in my mind that it's a rigged game. Last year Carrie Underwood was picked to win from the getgo by the Idol execs. I knew she was from the very first time she appeared on the show: how many other contestants at that stage of the game did Fox go all-out to produce a background video for? No other contestants received that kind of attention as Underwood did. It's also pretty safe to say that she got the lion's share of the magazine and tv news coverage... a LOT more than the other eleven finalists. Can she sing? I'll say she can, and very well too... but EVERYTHING was tilted in her favor by those running the show, and that puts too much of a taint on any success she's had since winning the competition last spring. I didn't watch the first season but seasons 2 and 3 seemed more or less "let the chips fall where they may". Last year's was a fixed game though: too much so for me to have any interest in who'll come out of this year's edition. I mean, what's the fun in watching a "fair" contest when the people running it have already decided who is going to win?