Oprah sharpens endorsement
Posted: Saturday, December 08, 2007 11:18 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC's Andy Merten and NBC/NJ's Carrie DannCEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA -- The political powerhouse tag-team of
Obama and Oprah continued their trek through icy Iowa this evening, after their first campaign appearance of their two-day, three-state tour. Drawing a smaller crowd -- albeit one of nearly 10,000, according to the campaign -- the Illinois senator and media mogul spoke in Cedar Rapids tonight, both delivering remarks similar to those given in Des Moines earlier today.
As she did during her first stop of the day, Winfrey acknowledged her foreignness to the campaign trail. "This is stepping out of the box for me," said the daytime television superstar. "I've never taken this kind of risk before, or felt compelled to stand up and speak out." To a crescendo of applause, she continued, "Because there wasn't anybody for me to stand out and speak out for."
On the campaign swing so far, Winfrey has refrained from overt political attacks, but has pushed back hard against the implicit argument that Obama lacks experience in comparison to his main rival. Tonight, she implored the cheering audience to "see through those people who try to convince you that experience with politics as usual is more valuable than wisdom born from years of serving the people outside of Washington."
Visibly energized by the buoyant vibe in the US Cellular Center, Obama delivered remarks that skipped from chuckled laugh lines to a fiercely pronounced call for change. Joking that Iowa is one of his "favorite things" -- a play on one of Oprah's famous segments -- he delivered perhaps his most candidly optimistic assessment of his chances for the Oval Office.
"Because of Iowa," he declared, "We might just win this thing."
"Who knew?" he added incredulously. "We might just pull this thing off! We might shock the world!"
At the start of his remarks, Obama joked about Oprah's immense sway among female voters -- no doubt a major factor in the campaign's decision to dispatch the TV queen, as polls show women drifting from Clinton in Iowa. He noted a staffer's joke that, "If she told our wives to kill us, there'd be blood running in the streets. That's power."
Revisiting last week's assertion by the Clinton campaign that their chief opponent has been contemplating a White House run since his early years, Obama also took a moment to joke about his intellectual capacity as a child. "Tomorrow I'm going to disclose all my kindergarten papers," he quipped. "I'm going to disclose that I experimented with coloring outside the lines."
Touring an ice-buried Midwestern state with a daytime television supernova? That could certainly be coloring outside the lines.
