This article does not necessarily show the stand of the site itself. All things said are all based on the writer's opinions, beliefs and observations.

     After several months of performing and competiting with each other, American Idol: the Search for a Superstar finally came into an end. Kelly Clarkson has won, which was not necessarily a big surprise for a lot of people. Both Simon and Randy has expressed on the Tuesday show that they wanted to see her win. However, a lot of people- including the writer of this articel- still somewhat feared that Justin Guarini might somewhat win the title of American Idol because the majority of teenage girls - apparently the number 1 audience of the show- will vote for him. Besides, if Tamyra lost to Justin, why can't Kelly?
     In the end though, the right thing happened- Kelly Clarkson has won! America got it right! Why did she win? One will never know the answer. Besides, there is no "criteria" in choosing the American Idol. The only rule is that whoever gets the highest number of votes win.We can only speculate on what America is thinking.
     First and foremost, one thing about Kelly is that she was never a favourite to win. In an interview for Us Magazine, Simon singled out Tamyra and Justin as the strongest contestants. Because of this, most people probably had the highest expectations for them, this lead to the demise of Tamyra because she was caught in a bad performance ONCE (read: "New Attitude"). Justin also had more than once gave a bad performance; he was even in the bottom 3 once because of this. The expectations for Kelly wasn't that high, so even if she delivered some so-so perfomances (the only one i can remember is Walk on by), America did not notice much mistakes with her.
     Her girl-next-door character also helped her a lot to win. Tamyra was perhaps too classy for the title; Nikki was too "weird"; Justin was too boy band-ish. Kelly had this face of an angel and the voice of a diva.
     Perhaps the biggest force that lead her to victory though is her attitude. She's a classy contestant- but not classy enough to be alienated from the audience (as what happened to Tamyra). She smiled when she was given compliments and she was friendly to fellow contestants (Christina Christian once said that she is rooting for Kelly to win because they are friends.) Justin, meanwhile, gave a hint one time of an ego somewhere in his personality. As a matter of fact, in the official American Idol site, a poll on Justin's page suggests that people thinks his ego is "Simon" (i.e. as big as judge Simon Cowell's ego). Therefore, he was kinda alinated to the American public as well. Justin is also not as talented and as natural as Kelly.

CK is a first-time writer. He is a self professed reality TV freak.