Two things: It was clear last week that the judges were aggressively attempting to push Elliott Yamin off the show. That must have been because they had decided it would be bad for business for Yamin to win — i.e., they knew the raw numbers of the voting, knew Taylor Hicks was so far ahead on a weekly basis that he was never going to drop, and wanted a boy-girl race in the final week because that would play better. There is no question — NO QUESTION — now that Taylor is going to win. Simon Cowell wouldn’t have said so flatly at the end of last night’s show if he didn’t know the kinds of margins Hicks was winning by in the raw vote. I know I’m the guy who said Elliott was going to take it all, but I didn’t have the inside information the judges have. Katharine McPhee has no chance. The dud from Alabama is the next American Idol.