Oprah Winfrey really showed her power to help Obama

By MIKE FITTS - Associate Editor

IN A PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE, Sen. John Edwards’ campaign on Friday tried to downplay the importance of Oprah Winfrey’s visit to South Carolina, calling it a “publicity stunt.” But what else is a political campaign, if you’re not seeking public attention and a chance to persuade?

Ms. Winfrey gave Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign both on Sunday, and showed why her first-time foray into politics changes the landscape of this presidential race, especially in South Carolina.

First off, look at Sunday’s crowd: about 29,000, according to the organizers’ count. Sen. Obama is a big draw, but that crowd in Williams-Brice Stadium speaks to the added jolt she brings.

Most of the people I spoke to as they were filing in said that Sen. Obama was the reason they came, with Oprah as a bonus. “It’s like a team,” said Mary Stroman of Irmo. Lori Harkness made it clear that she made the trip to hear from the candidate more than the talk show host. “I see her every day at four.”

But Oprah Winfrey is different from most celebrity endorsers, and she showed it on Sunday. She not only draws a large crowd, but comes in with a credibility with the public no one else can beat — aided by the fact that she’s never done this before. She triggered tremendous energy when she took the stage. She’s a natural before an audience, and especially good before this Southern audience — which I’d guess was three-fourths African-American.

“I know something about growing up in the South, and know about what it means to come from the South and be born in 1954,” Ms. Winfrey said.

She spoke of her decisions to endorse for the first time as “stepping out of my pew” — a splendid metaphor for leaving her comfort zone. She also told the crowd she realized that people wouldn’t just follow her word like a book club recommendation.

One of the reasons Ms. Winfrey makes such an effective endorser for Sen. Obama is the parallel nature of their life stories. Both came from broken homes (hers in true poverty) and achieved things — and a level of acceptance across racial lines — that were unattainable to black people before them.

This allows Ms. Winfrey to answer one of the questions that Democrats have about Sen. Obama: Can he really be the nominee? Can he really be elected president?

Her very presence says “yes.” If she can become “Oprah,” then can’t he become President Obama?

“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 wouldn’t be where I am if I’d waited on the people who told me it couldn’t be,” Ms. Winfrey said.

That’s an especially important message for the Obama campaign to get out at an event like this, where the star power on stage has brought out some undecideds or people leaning toward other candidates. It’s a question that Sen. Obama has to answer if he’s going to win over their votes.

This big rally also helps the campaign lock down votes among people who were leaning their way; it gets them out of their chairs and builds a commitment to vote on primary day. The Obama campaign collected a card of information from everyone coming in, giving it a huge new database of folks it can call on to turn out or even volunteer to help.

All three of the day’s speakers, starting with Michelle Obama, the candidate’s wife, threw in little digs at Hillary Clinton, though her name was never mentioned. Sen. Obama was most blunt, denouncing the politics of “triangulation” and the poll-taking caution of a “by-the-numbers Washington campaign.”

He stuck mostly to his standard stump speech; a football stadium is no place to try to lay out new policy ideas. But he hit the mark with the crowd when he mentioned the poverty he’s seen in previous trips to South Carolina. He noted that the education that helped him succeed is unjustly denied to many in our state’s poorest counties. “I’m not better than those children in the Corridor of Shame,” he said.

Overall, it was Oprah, not Obama, who made the best emotional appeal to the crowd, especially its black majority. She told the audience to remember a scene in the movie “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” in which the title character, grown old, looks through the children’s ranks for “the one” — the next great leader, the one that African-Americans have sought and never really found.

“I do believe he’s the one,” Ms. Winfrey said.

How can the Obama camp top that endorsement? It can’t.

Ms. Winfrey is the best endorser that the Obama campaign could ask for, as she showed Sunday in Columbia. She even could trump Hillary Clinton’s husband.

She made the day for the senator’s campaign on Sunday; if his campaign is smart, it will beg her to come back to South Carolina before the state takes its place in the Democratic spotlight Jan. 26.

Reach Mr. Fitts at mfitts@thestate.com or (803) 771-8467.