Today’s matchups were both lopsided in activity. @texasinafrica continued the full-court-press strategy she has employed to great success throughout the tournament, while her opponent @blakehounshell engaged only lightly.
On the other side, @smsaideman kept up a near relentless dance, while @JimmySky was occupied during much of the day:
He made a late play for the judges’ favor, but was it enough? Here’s how the races broke down.
Western Final
**@texasinafrica: 84%, three of four judges’ votes
@blakehounshell: 16%, one of four judges’ votes
With three of four judges and her most-dominant-yet showing in the public voting, the favorite moves on to Wednesday’s final.
Eastern Final
@JimmySky: 37%, two of four judges’ votes
**@smsaideman: 63%, two of four judges’ votes
@JimmySky’s late surge was enough to split the judges, but @smsaideman takes the day with a strong edge in the voting.
Tune in tomorrow for the epic final battle of TFC13! And now to the judges’ ballots.
@guinpherson
Thanks to @caidid for taking the lead on this and pulling it all together. When I was invited to judge, I thought I was the subject of an April Fools’ Day prank. But to my chagrin, it was a genuine request. Lucky you, competitors. Like judges of the past, I decided to vote by relying almost entirely on pandering, responsiveness, and snark. There may have been a magic 8-ball involved.
We already know these four have the smarts, but who had tenacity to fight to the end TODAY?
@texasinafrica vs. @blakehounshell
@texasinafrica has been a force to be reckoned with since day one, and today was no different. She came out of gate pandering, and heavily so, with #FollowMonday’s, and submitting a gracious request to the judges:
soon to be followed by this:
She brought the pain. She was relentless. Most importantly, she said she would paint my bedroom. While I’m aware that’s not likely to happen, she does possess mad painting and decorating skills, seen here:
And besides baby @HayesBrown in a bow tie, can anything top a baby AND chocolate in the same tweet? I think not.
I’ve been following @blakehounsell for some time, and he is consistent in his ability to keep the tweets coming, like an Olive Garden waitress with breadsticks. While he provided continuous content and actively engaged with others in the twittersphere, he seemed largely absent from the fight itself. Other than delving out a handful of retaliatory punches when aroused, it was pretty quiet.
The clear winner today was @texasinafrica
@JimmySky vs. @smsaideman
I’ve been a long time follower and fan of @JimmySky. NOTE: His kid was declared persona non grata at the White House Easter Egg Roll. Please take a moment and check out the full story in his twitter feed. Point for @JimmySky. His priorities were with the family later in the day, so his engagement with TFC was limited-which is both understood and admirable. Come nightfall, he made a gallant attempt to make up for valuable lost fighting time, and succeeded.
Bonus: He was the only contestant to note my preferability of cider to bourbon, albeit disapprovingly.
@smsaideman’s sheer amount of interaction was impressive. He really laid on the snark and pandering thick, and early, even though he later criticised @texasinafrica for doing the same:
On the downside, there came a point when I lost count of the memes. Oh, the memes! Ok, so this one was good:
Later came a plea to Morgan Fairchild, which I have to give him credit. Ballsy.
Overall, he followed through with the zingers and excelled in the responsiveness category.
Both performed well, but today, I have to give the win to @smsaideman.
@hayesbrown
After my inglorious defeat in the Sweet 16, I’m back to render judgment upon those who remain. The good book says, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” Well, been there, done that, and so this morning I set about putting on my Judgy McJudgerson impression and having at it.
That said, OH MY GOD THIS IS DIFFICULT. I was a judge last year, and I have to say that it was nowhere near as hard as making picks in the Final Four is turning out to be. So, I’m just going to break out the trust d20 and hope for the — wait, @caidid is telling me I can’t just trust fate on this one. Damn.
WEST BRACKET
1. @texasinafrica vs. 1. @blakehounshell
A clash of the titans, the pugilistic, no-holds-barred slugfest we’ve all seen marching inexorably up the bracket. And it turned out to be…less than competitive.
On the one hand, I greatly enjoy @blakehounshell’s normal body of work, as day in and day out he has one of the best foreign policy Twitter feeds out there, as evidenced by his presence among the Final Four. And the guy was kind enough to edit my ForeignPolicy.com piece on the crazy that is Jim DeMint into something that was mostly readable. Plus, the use of his adorable son as a prop isn’t ever discouraged.
On that same hand, there’s the fact that @texasinafrica was the one that knocked me out of the running in the first place, with her amazingly well-timed Photoshops and all. Which left me feeling like this when @caidid first asked me to judge this round:
But while @blakehounshell is tough, @texasinafrica has the moves necessary to run up the score against him. She was everywhere today — again. It’s no secret that this is why she was the overall no. 1 seed, and it shone through yet again today. Not only was she being her normal overly informative self, tweeting news and very strong opinions about Africa, but she took every chance she could get to remind the audience to vote for her over @blakehounshell and pester him for his beliefs. She went in deep, too. Whoever she has running oppo for her deserves a place at the table in 2016.
And when it comes to pandering, man did @texasinafrica take the cake. I’m not saying her promise of aFounding Farmers gift card totally swung me, but it certainly didn’t hurt. And @blakehounshell’s less that convincing plea towards the end, along with his refusal to acknowledge the request for some sweet, sweet Foreign Policy funding for the TFC13 wrap-up happy hour, wasn’t super impressive.
So in the end, I’m going to have to give this one to @texasinafrica, to help send her to the Championship. Here’s hoping @blakehounshell ever solicits words from me ever again.
EAST BRACKET
5. @smsaideman vs. 11. @JimmySky
This one was much, much more difficult than the seeding would have you believe. Both of these two gave it their all, so I’m just going to start writing in the hopes that by the time I’ve finished I’ve picked a winner and I’ve stopped feeling like this:
As a fan of Michigan State basketball and the Big Ten, I can totally appreciate the beauty that is grinding down an opponent with suffocating defense. And that’s precisely what @smsaideman did today, ensuring that nothing got by him, that no opportunity to pander wasn’t grabbed, and no second chance for points wasn’t taken. His near endless supply of memes was definitely eye-catching and hilarious.
His flooding the zone only drew more attention to @JimmySky’s distinct lack of tweeting throughout most of the day. There were no attempts at TKOs like we saw during his fight with @SlaughterAM. What cuts @JimmySky did manage to get were definitely razor-sharp, though, which added to his points.
What really recovered @JimmySky, though, was his — as always — amazing stories about his kids, Kid A and Creep. Those definitely had to draw him plenty of votes from the masses, and I love hearing about them. In fact, one of my goals in life is to meet those kids before they get too old to be precocious.
And @JimmySky’s pandering was definitely more targeted, pulling out the comic book lore and all that jazz, which I love. But @smsaideman was no slouch either, going the flattery route, which is never unappreciated.
In the end, though, I’m going to surprise myself and say that this isn’t TwitterKidsClub. it’s Twitter Fight Club. And throughout the day, @smsaideman was the tougher fighter, earning him my vote. At least @JimmySky will learn from this, and invite me to Founding Farmers next time…
@intelwire
Opening homage aping semi-obscure historical political document]
[Self-congratulatory remarks couched as praise for contest]
[Self-indulgent, slightly-too-long flight of prose]
And now to the results [note to self, don’t forget to fill in the top].
@JimmySky vs. @smsaideman
@texasinafrica vs. @blakehounshell
In each of these two contests, the following conditions applied:
1) Each pitted one of my core follows (column A) against someone I hadn’t been following before (column B).
2) Each pitted someone who already followed me (A) against someone who didn’t follow me until today (B).
3) Each pitted a non-panderer (A) against a panderer (B). I am not so much a fan of pandering.
4) Each pitted someone who had previously been notably nice to me (A) against someone I barely knew prior to today (B).
But let’s see how it plays out.
@JimmySky and @smsaideman put on an entertaining battle, no doubt. @JimmySky led with a strong slate of tweets about his kids, but it was OK, because a) he always does that and b) the stories are always funny. @smsaideman countered with some funny nerd memes, plus he carried over some previous goodwill due to @will_mccants’ recent praise of his hospitality. @smsaideman tried pandering. As I mentioned, I don’t care for pandering, but if you’re going to do it, GO LARGE. Complimenting the lustre of my beard is not going large; plugging my research paper from last week would have at least shown some attention to detail. Finally, @JimmySky is a cool twitter handle, whereas I can’t figure out how to pronounce @smsaideman. For all these reasons, I have to give the edge to @JimmySky, in addition to his falling in Column A.
Winner: @JimmySky
Over in the @blakehounshell vs. @texasinafrica match, the former started out with a commanding position in Column A, enhanced by the fact that his feed is not dissimilar to mine, and oh, did I mention, he’s kind of my boss over at Foreign Policy? @texasinafrica put on an impressive display of opposition research that had some impact, but in the process inadvertently alerted me to the fact Blake is from Pittsburgh, where I lived for more than a decade and which I remember fondly, so, you know, unintended consequences. On the pandering front, @texasinafrica did GO LARGE, offering to send “anything you want” via parcel post, but here’s the thing: I really didn’t believe that she was serious about that, and by the time I opened my parcel, it would be too late because I would already have cast my vote. Well fought, but @blakehounshell takes it.
@robertcaruso
I do not follow any of the four contestants; I find the volume too heavy for my own timeline, which I use to aggregate information in lieu of cable news & Google Reader. The content of all four contestants, however, is stellar, and is a permanent fixture of at least one of my many twitter lists. It also helps that none of these four say exceptionally asinine things about drones, nor do any of them think is Africa is a country, which is a mark in the plus column regardless of the winner(s). I looked at all four competitors’ tweets from 1 MAR to today, and considered both feeds in terms of the criteria frequently cited in the Twitter Fight Club posts.
Knowledge-base:
@smsaideman — Stephen, being an alumni of The Building and a contemporary of at least four of my former skippers, would ordinarily be my preferred choice seeing as he is also my go-to source on encapsulating civil-military relations, which he predicates on experience — a rare commodity in this to- swamp.
@JimmySky — a diamond in rough, @jimmysky is perhaps the only personality on Twitter sans @maxwalsh92 and @jasonfritz1 who can match my encyclopedic knowledge of the litany of uniform patterns simultaneously in use by the US military present-day (14 by last count). He also imparts priceless Star Wars trivia to his adorable kids which, as a nerd, is to be commended.
ADVANTAGE: @JimmySky
@texasinafrica — Laura had the common decency to offer me rum unsoiled by the hands of Dominicans, an inferior and decidedly primitive island people relegated by the clearly superior Puerto Rican super-race to sharing a hunk of hardened lava with the Haitians. Ordinarily, this alone would secure a win. But she also studies, teaches and visits Africa — which, curiously enough, is not a country but a rather large continent located to the east of Jalalabad.
@blakehounshell — Blake knows we’re tired of reading about drones but comes up with increasingly creative ruses to get us to click, which is commendable for its ruthlessness.
ADVANTAGE: @texasinafrica
Logic & Reasoning:
@smsaideman — Stephen is methodical, sane and not prone to giving credence to nonsense. He knows NATO and doesn’t subscribe to ridiculous conspiracy theories involving our dilapidated CIA, drones, the Department of Homeland Security or all three.
@JimmySky — He also is methodical and sane and has instilled in his children the (rightful!) fear of Death Stars, which are superior to drones in virtually every respect (they’re also energy efficient).
ADVANTAGE: @JimmySky
@texasinafrica — Laura knows where Mali is which, living here amongst the Georgetown students, is a Herculean feat indeed.
@blakehounshell — Blake has the dubious honor of not only presiding over a Foreign Policy web presence replete with listicle after infuriating listicle, but an equally infuriating login screen that prevents me from enjoying things I want to read, which usually consists of @joshrogin’s incredible scoops and @azelin and @tweetsintheME taking men and women twice (meh, thrice) their age to task.
ADVANTAGE: @texasinafrica
Responsiveness to followers:
In the interest of actual objectivity, I am unable to gauge responsiveness properly, seeing as all four finalists are included in one or more of my Twitter lists but I don’t actually follow them. Fair is fair, unless its permissible to cheat (which is often) — but we’re not doing that here.
Humor, snark and facility with quips (I’ll be using a scale of 1 to 10 here on out)
@smsaideman — 9 out of 10.
@JimmySky — 7 out of 10.
ADVANTAGE: @smsaideman
@texasinafrica - 5 out of 10
@blakehounshell - 7 out of 10
ADVANTAGE: @blakehounshell
Charisma & overall awesomeness:
@smsaideman — 9 out of 10.
@JimmySky — 7 out of 10.
ADVANTAGE: @smsaideman
@texasinafrica - 5 out of 10
@blakehounshell - 7 out of 10
ADVANTAGE: @blakehounshell
Overall, I vote for @jimmysky and @texasinafrica. It was tough — but fair.
