Building on the 'Oprah Effect'
Posted: Monday, December 03, 2007 3:37 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Carrie Dann and Aswini Anburajan
Next Saturday, throngs of media will descend upon Des Moines and Cedar Rapids to cover this weekend's impending Obama-Oprah extravaganza. Critics will undoubtedly say that the mega-celebrity of Oprah Winfrey's stumping effort flies in the face of the one-on-one retail politics that supposedly characterizes the Iowa courting process. But the Obama campaign is quick to say that Oprah's appearance is about more than just a lot of bright lights.
Obama's Iowa team says that Oprah's appearance offers the opportunity to harness organizational power and recruit a new constituency of caucus-goers. "We've gotten a LOT of calls," says spokesman Josh Earnest, who adds that the appearance is just as much about rewarding grassroots volunteerism as it is about the glamour of a high-profile tour.
To that end, Obama's much-coveted precinct captains and volunteers are being offered choice tickets to the two Oprah-headlined events. That's an incentive for interested supporters to sign up for the job in the hopes of future perks -- and with 1,784 precincts to organize on caucus night, that could be a major boost to thicken the spine of the campaign's presence in far-flung areas of the state.
Both the Cedar Rapids and Des Moines events will feature a heavy emphasis on caucus education, as well in the hopes of encouraging newcomers to commit to attending the sometimes-intimidating January meetings.
Earnest says that more details about the ticketing process will be released in the coming days.
In South Carolina, the Obama campaign also has prioritized giving tickets to the team leaders and their biggest volunteers who will get VIP seating at the event. Anyone who met their November vote and supporter goals will also receive special recognition, and campaign supporters were handed large batches of tickets to hand out to co-workers, friends, and family who were undecided or curious about the event. The focus for the South Carolina team is much more about using Oprah to bring new faces unfamiliar with the campaign -- or people who don't pay much attention to politics. Unlike Iowa or New Hampshire, Obama has averaged about one visit a month to the state, which sees little media attention or big name surrogates stumping for the candidates. For at least one day on December 9, that could all change.
Kevin Griffis, Obama's press secretary in the state, said he's never seen anything quite like the anticipation to see Oprah. "It's going to give us an opportunity to connect with a lot of people who at this point have not been connecting with the campaign; increase the number of volunteers; and help us identify a lot of voters," he said.
To illustrate that point, Griffis told the story of the unexpected surprise staffers received on Saturday morning. When staff arrived at state headquarters around 6:00 am, there was a line of people wrapped around the building with their sleeping bags in tow, waiting for the office to open and get tickets. The campaign handed out 3,000 tickets just this past weekend. As of this afternoon, they have stopped distributing tickets to the event in fear of an overflow. The arena where Oprah and Obama will speak, at the Colonial Center in Columbia, seats 18,900 people.
