When Oprah speaks, people listen.
They read the books she recommends; they see the movies she produces; they buy the products she deems her favorites.
If the Power of O extends to politics, the Oprah-Obama dream team could be a case of Double O heaven for Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign.
For the first time, the queen of daytime talk is endorsing a presidential candidate, bestowing her blessing on Obama (D-Ill). And this weekend, she’ll appear with him and his wife, Michelle, at campaign events in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Manchester, N.H.; and Columbia, S.C.
Back in 1992, the Bush White House deemed Oprah Winfrey’s daytime talk show insufficiently serious for the incumbent president to visit. But in the years since then, Winfrey’s couch, along with the easy chairs on other chat shows, have become so attractive to candidates that the political world is now wondering whether Winfrey might actually hold the Democratic nomination in her hands.
Her arrival on the campaign trail promises to be a glitzy, high-energy political moment — perhaps even more anticipated than the moment last summer when a former President Bill Clinton first stepped out to campaign with Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).
While the moment is political, it will test whether Winfrey’s life philosophy — be true to yourself! be grateful every day! transform your life! help others! stay positive! — translates to the political arena. Does her formula work beyond the Oprah bubble? Can she translate her powers of suggestion for books, hairstyles and life attitudes into votes?
Certainly there is a harmony between Winfrey and Obama, both in outlook and promise. They both speak of the politics of hope. They speak of change and spiritual renewal.
“Obama is a post-polarization candidate and Oprah is a post-polarization celebrity,” said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers. “Whereas people like Barbra Streisand and Jane Fonda make you think of taking to the barricades, with Oprah it’s conciliation and brotherhood.” (Streisand endorsed Clinton last week.)
There’s an extra bit of good timing for Obama. The enormously popular Winfrey is set to appear just as the race between Obama and Clinton is tightening.
“All of us feel a sense of momentum, and Oprah adds to that,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist.
Kate Anderson, 20, a student at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, said she loves watching Oprah and that she and her mother “religiously read everything she has to say” in her magazine. She said she liked Obama and while the endorsement is not the only reason, it is part of the reason.
“I think what Oprah stands for to me is a sense of moving forward and hope, which I think is what Obama has come to stand for,” she said. Of Winfrey’s daytime audience of 8.6 million viewers, 75 percent are women. More than half are older than 50, 44 percent make less than $40,000 a year, and about 25 percent have no more than a high school diploma, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Many of these viewers fit the profile of a Clinton supporter, which is one reason Winfrey may be valuable to Obama.
Winfrey already has hinted at how she will court them. “I believe in this person,” she told Larry King in May as she discussed her endorsement.
“I know him well enough to believe in his moral authority,” she told The Hollywood Reporter last week.
Such statements break down the mystery of endorsement to a basic formula: If Oprah likes Barack and the audience likes Oprah, then the audience also will like Barack. It has worked with Winfrey’s book club, after all.
In politics, however, it doesn’t usually work that way. William Gray, a former Democratic congressman from Philadelphia and former president of the United Negro College Fund, recalled last week that during his first race for Congress in the 1970s, his opponent had brought in Muhammad Ali.
“There was no one bigger in the black community,” he said. Still, Gray won.
“Oprah may be shocked in this first foray into the political waters that her personal popularity doesn’t rub off on Obama,” said Gray, who is supporting Clinton. Endorsements can bring money and news media visibility, he said, “but Oprah can’t turn Obama into Oprah.”
With all the buildup of Winfrey’s transformational abilities, the Obama campaign is now lowering expectations of exactly what she can do. Axelrod, the Obama strategist, is quick to say the campaign does not expect her to secure votes on her own.
“Barack has said that this is not like Oprah’s book club,” he said. “We don’t expect people to vote for him just because she is supporting him. She can add some additional excitement and energy, and she can open doors, and we hope to walk through those doors. But Barack has to make the sale.”
