The 2015 TallyMadness tournament — the online voting competition to determine Tallahassee’s “best” lobbyist — continues into the Elite 8 tomorrow at midnight, but first there’s the business of sorting out the tangled intrigue of the Sweet 16, which has again lit up up the virtual voting booth with tens of thousands of votes.
Will #5 seed Jeff Hartley be able to pull off an eleventh-hour comeback to surmount top-seeded Brian Ballard‘s 4-figure lead? More votes have been cast in less time, but it remains to be seen.
How about #15 seed and prospective Cinderella Andy Palmer? Where did that early-round mojo go? So far #3 seed and seeming vote-whisperer Mark Delegal is hanging a big lead on him, but as we learned from Brecht Heuchan in the Round of 32, no lead is ever safe in TallyMadness.
#1 seed Ron Book is currently taking #12 seed Marc Reichelderfer to the cleaners in their Sweet 16 showdown, but after the impressive come-from-behind victories the LandMarc Strategies founder has put together in the early rounds of TallyMadness 2015 and in Florida ballot boxes, we’re not counting him out.
#14 Will McKinley‘s performance in the Sweet 16 so far recalls the Space Jam scene in which the Monstars sap Charles Barkley’s Hall of Fame talent, leaving him mysteriously bricking jumpshots, as #7 Tim Meenan‘s veritable virtual trebuchet of votes goes largely unanswered. But can McKinley make like the Toon Squad at halftime and rally with the aid of Michael Jordan’s Special Stuff? A reminder: in TallyMadness, performance-enhancing drugs are encouraged.
As we predicted in our last TallyMadness communique, the matchup between #9 seed Brecht Heuchan and #13 seed Bill Peebles is causing our servers to beg for mercy, as Peebles leads Heuchan 58 percent to 42 with nearly 25,000 ballots cast in all. With that much volume coming in, it’s still too close to call even with Peebles’ considerable advantage.
Though #7 Slater Bayliss clearly has some voters stepping up to the plate for him, it hasn’t been enough so far to counteract the ballot-stuffing onslaught #11 seed John Holley is bringing to bear. Can Bayliss, the slight favorite, put on his best 2004 Tracy McGrady act and rack up a few thousand votes in a few hours? Only time can tell.
#16 seed and truly this tournament’s ultimate Gonzaga Monica Rodriguez just keeps on piling up votes, as she amasses a four-figure lead over #12 seed Richard Coates, whose own Sweet 16 bid was the result of some impressive upheavals. Rodriguez looks poised to move into the rare air of the Elite 8, but the only constant in TallyMadness World is uncertainty.
And finally, our last matchup is one of the closest: giant-slaying #7 seed Katie Webb is running just behind #3 seed Robert Coker. Coker currently commands 57.7 percent of ballots cast to Webb’s 42.3 percent. The only numbers that count, though, are the ones on the scoreboard at round’s end.
Vote and help your favorite Tallahassee lobbyists advance to the Elite 8 until midnight tonight at TallyMadness.com!
