Oprah's Flock

It's nothing new for celebrities to hit the campaign trail to give their favorite candidates a boost.

Celebrity appearances help draw crowds. They can get people who are politically clueless to become engaged.

Oprah Winfrey is doing exactly that, using her influence to influence primary voters.

It's undeniable that Oprah has a lot of influence. By featuring books on her show, she was able to create best-sellers by directing her audience to buy them and join in her book club. It's all part of the Oprah experience.

Can she turn Barack Obama into a "best-seller"?

Will her endorsement of Obama translate into votes?

From the Washington Post:

An overwhelmingly African American audience took center stage in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination here Sunday, as Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), joined by television talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, appealed to black voters to set aside their doubts and seize the opportunity to send him to the White House in 2008.

"South Carolina, our moment is now," Obama said to an audience estimated by organizers as made up of 29,000 people at the University of South Carolina's football stadium. "Don't let them tell you we've got to wait. Our moment is now."

"Dr. King dreamed the dream," Winfrey said, referring to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "But we don't have to just dream the dream anymore. We get to vote that dream into reality."

I don't like it when people evoke Martin Luther King to draw parallels and make connections to fit their agendas.

That's pushing it. It's exploitative.

Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) are in a fierce competition for the Democratic votes of both African Americans and women in South Carolina, whose Jan. 26 primary is the fourth contest on the nomination calendar next year. The state was given a prominent, early date by the Democratic National Committee because of its sizable black population.

Winfrey's appearance here underscored how vital the support of both groups is to Obama's hopes of winning the Democratic nomination, as well as the concern within his campaign that, in contrast to states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, the senator from Illinois is not nearly as well known here and needs to improve his standing, particularly among black women.

...Obama's Sunday rally was held under ideal conditions -- an almost cloudless blue sky and temperatures hovering near 70 degrees. It was a stark contrast to the frigid wintry weather that greeted the senator and Winfrey in Iowa on Saturday.

Cars began filling the parking lots around Williams-Brice Stadium long before local pastors had finished their sermons here Sunday morning, and long lines of people snaked around the stadium entrances until the gates were opened at 12:30 p.m. The crowd was the largest of the 2008 campaign and rivaled some of the biggest crowds at the close of general-election campaigns.

Asked why she had come to the event, Afredia Boyd of Columbia said: "It was more Obama than Oprah. But she just kind of put the icing on the cake."

"Let's face it," said Dot Law of Hilton Head. "Voters are about numbers. Oprah can attract the numbers, and hopefully once you come and hear him you will then make up your own mind. . . . I don't think she will make you vote, but she can bring out a lot of people here that can hear his message that may not have wanted to come to hear otherwise."

"You've got to get people's attention," said Jim Margolis, media adviser to the Obama campaign. "This is a wake-up. It tells people to pay attention. . . . It's about generating excitement. She does that for us, but he's got to make the sale."

I don't know about that. I don't know that Obama has to make the sale.

Oprah leads her flock and they follow. She knows that. She knows that people in her audience listen when she tells them what to do.

I guess the question becomes: Is the flock of her faithful large enough to impact an election?

Winfrey and Obama ended their whirlwind weekend tour by traveling to New Hampshire, where 8,500 people braved a winter storm to see them Sunday night in Manchester.

In Columbia, a religious idiom and echoes of the civil rights movement flowed through the speeches of Winfrey, Obama and Obama's wife, Michelle. The candidate quoted from the Book of Psalms as he surveyed the crowd in the stadium and the weather overhead: "Look at the day the Lord has made," he marveled.

Obama is talking about the Lord?

I think he should have to do a Romney-esque religion speech and explain himself.

Is Obama pushing a theocracy on the U.S.?

When Frank Rich hears about this, he'll need a sedative.

Winfrey said it was "amazing grace" that brought her to the campaign trail for Obama, and she talked of growing up in the South in the 1950s. She got female heads nodding throughout the stadium when she talked about the beauty salons that populate the Palmetto State and the humidity that ruins hairdos. "We love to keep our hair done down here," she said, brushing her hands through her own hair.

Winfrey drew responses of "no" and "nonsense" when she said there are those who say the youthful Obama, who is in his third year in the Senate, should wait for his turn before seeking the presidency. The cries turned to cheers and applause as she continued: "Think about where you'd be in your life if you waited when the people told you to. I wouldn't be where I am if I waited on the people who told me it couldn't be."

It's scary if Oprah can lead some revival meetings and succeed at getting her audience to jump on the Obama bandwagon.

Is the cult of her celebrity that strong?

I hate to think that there are thousands of people who make choices based on the "What Would Oprah Do?" model.