‘McPheever’ is tepid in blase L.A.

On Wednesday night, 27.1 million viewers watched video footage of the three remaining contestants on “American Idol” returning triumphantly to their hometowns.

Elliott Yamin received the key to the city of Richmond, Va., from Mayor L. Douglas Wilder and a “Virginia Is for Elliott Lovers” T-shirt from Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. He performed to 4,000 supporters downtown.

When Taylor Hicks returned to his town of Birmingham, Ala., Gov. Bob Riley declared May 16 “Taylor Hicks Day.” The singer also performed to screaming fans, 12,000 of them in a mall, and attended a parade in his honor.

But L.A. girl Katharine McPhee, who grew up in Sherman Oaks, had a less enthusiastic welcome. She visited her alma mater, Notre Dame High School, went on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show, among others, and took a helicopter ride to see the Hollywood sign.

No parade. No screaming fans. No governor, although Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa put in an appearance at the school.

All this led “American Idol” fan Augie De Blieck Jr. to ask some pointed questions on his blog, Various and Sundry. “I ... have to wonder what the effects of being from the big city versus a small town are on voting patterns,” he mused. “Is Katharine hurt by being from L.A., a town that’s hardly going to stop everything to rally in support of her? Are the small town Southern singers going to excite a larger fan base based on local support and always win the day? After all they’ve dominated this competition through all five seasons.” In other words, is it statistically possible for a girl from California to be the next “American Idol”?

We consulted the experts of the “Idol” community, the people who devote their lives to following the show, analyzing and predicting its every twist -- to see whether L.A.’s local heroine has a shot in the big leagues of reality TV, or if an L.A. lineage is the kiss of death to a would-be Idol:

Jennifer Grove, who blogs about “Idol” on IdolingAlong.blogspot.com says the poor turnout from Los Angeles may actually help McPhee in the finals next week. “That might have picked her up a few supporters because most of the reaction to the hometown videos I’ve received were of the ‘poor kid, she didn’t get a parade’ variety. And I never discount the power of the empathy vote....”

But Simon Nobel, chief executive of Pinnacle Sports UK, a betting website that runs a line on each week’s “Idol” elimination, disagrees. “It’s no coincidence that every winner so far has been from a Southern state,” he said. (Last season, winner Carrie Underwood was from Oklahoma -- not technically the South, but close enough.) “The typical voter is young, quite often female and from the South. That has more to do with it than whether [McPhee] does well or not.

“When we are setting up the odds for the first time, we actually go through and make a note of who comes from the South,” he said.

Traditionally, the “Idol” title has gone to people with inspirational stories like Underwood, the little farm girl with the big voice, and Fantasia Barrino, the illiterate single mom who wouldn’t give up on her dream. But McPhee is from an affluent section of Los Angeles. Will being seen as a rich girl from the big city hurt her chances?

The pundits say no, especially because Sherman Oaks, unlike Beverly Hills or Bel-Air, is not a nationally known indicator of wealth. “I know virtually nothing about Sherman Oaks,” said David Bloomberg, who lives in Springfield, Ill., and edits the website Foxes on Idol (www.foxesonidol.com). “And even if it was clear that it is a wealthy area, I don’t think that would affect people much at this point.”

“There are those who really believe that those who are perceived as privileged, either by affluence or family connections, don’t need this show as much as someone who is perceived as less privileged. And they vote accordingly,” Grove said. “I don’t think that attitude equates to enough votes to defeat someone from an affluent state/community over someone from the South/small town on its own, but the attitude is there. And it’s rearing its head in my comment thread today.”

In an e-mail interview, the editor of the website Reality TV Magazine (www.RealityTVMagazine.com), who gave his name only as Joe Reality, said, “The odds are heavily stacked against her. A large part of the reason Southerners do so well on ‘American Idol’ is because their entire state rallies behind them. For Katharine McPhee to have a chance, she needs California to rally behind her.”

And, unfortunately for McPhee, the state shows little sign of being swept by a large-scale outbreak of McPheever. For Californians, the possibility of a local girl becoming a star is an everyday occurrence, hardly registering on the cultural radar.