What Some Here Missed About "The Oprah Effect"

[ClarkUSA]

Ana Marie Cox, Swampland:

"What matters the most--and what these rallies were really about--was culling a universe of potential voters that no other candidate has.
Pundits who pontificated as to whether Oprah would change people's minds about Obama missed the point."

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2007/12/re_the_oprah_effect.html

Cox writes about The Double O Express rally she attended:

Manchester's Verizon Center has, undoubtedly, seen many iterations of the wave. I suspect, though, that the occasion of a visit from Barack
Obama and Oprah Winfrey marked the first time the arena hosted a wave performed by an audience divided equally between middle-aged
ladies in Christmas sweaters, hipsters in cords and ringer-tees and men of indeterminate ages bundled into parkas. Almost all of the 8,500
people packing the Center were white — and they were there to see two black people. Neither of whom would sing or throw a ball.

The wave was just one of the ways the audience tried to work off its nervous energy. They danced, they chanted. As disco music played, those
seated near the curtained hallway to the back and left of the stage gasped when an elegant black hand briefly parted the curtain. An older black
woman in an Obama t-shirt, bright kerchief and big glasses had a view just inside the sanctum; she hopped to her feet and waved her hands
like she had just seen Elvis. The hand outside the curtain waved and pointed to her with an ironic, hep-cat flick of the wrist: Right on.

All of Barack Obama would emerge only after short speeches from his wife Michelle and his friend Oprah. Winfrey used her patented mix of
girlfriend-style dish ("When Gayle and I talk... mmmm-mmm... we also talk about real things...") and campaign-style sermonizing
("Experience... means nothing unless that person is accountable for the judgments they made during the time they had.")... When her
speech reached its climax, the touchstone was not the words of Martin Luther King Jr. (though he was mentioned), but a novel: The
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. The slave Jane Pittman, Oprah said, looks for the one who might free her for years, asking, "are
you the one?" Oprah then told the crowd, "He is the one."

The frenzy that then greeted Obama, nearly four hours after the crowd had lined up outside the arena, was full of awe and hysteria. A lot
people get excited to shake a politician's hand; not so many greet one as though he were about to heal them by laying his on them.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1693043,00.html

It's about time politics excited potential voters rather than boring them. The more people get engaged in the process for Democratic
candidates, the better our chances are for 2008.

This wasn't about glitz and glamor. This wasn't just a photo-op. This is about organized grassroots mobilization.

Take a look at the numbers:

:redbox: At least 66,500 attended the rallies (More than 29,000 in Iowa, more than 29,000 in South Carolina and 8,500 in New Hampshire)

:bluebox: 4,250 volunteers helped to build the events in the week prior and the day of the events (2,300 in South Carolina, 1,300 in Iowa and
650 in New Hampshire)

:redbox: In South Carolina, 68% of the folks who signed up for the rally had never communicated with the campaign before. 1,300 supporters
volunteered the day of the rally and more than 9,600 signed supporter cards for the first time. The first attendees arrived at the stadium
between 5:00-5:30 a.m. yesterday morning.

:bluebox: In Iowa, tickets were distributed out of all 37 field offices around the state. In Des Moines alone, 1,385 volunteer shifts were completed
for individuals who wanted tickets to the rally.

:redbox: In New Hampshire, over 2,300 new supporters joined the campaign just this week leading up to the rally and more than 650 new
volunteers signed on to help the campaign.

:bluebox: In South Carolina, where over 29,000 showed up to hear Obama and Oprah, we organized the world's largest phone bank (we even got
certified by the Guinness Book of World Records).

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/10/18451/283

Gotta love it. :party:

[cali]

1. I have no problem with the Oprah thing

but that article about people swooning over celebrity makes me want to :puke:

[flashl]

2. It's about time politics excited potential voters

[troubleinwinter]

3. "...rather than boring them"

I suspect that many of the potential voters are more interested in the celebrities. I certainly don't find politics boring and doubt you do.

The Sean Penn/Oprah/Streisand thing is creepy to me. Don't select your candidate, select your favorite celebrity?

[flashl]

4. Retail politics suggests otherwise.

[NMDemDist2]

6. 'xactly! the question is, will the celebrity hounds actually register and come out to vote

rallies are one thing, bodies at the polling places on voting day are something else entirely......

[ClarkUSA]

8. Whatever gets them through the door... the Obama campaign is doing the rest. Read this:

Obama begins intensive effort to turn Oprah fans into primary-election voters
Link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3820597

[Perry Logan]

5. And yet it's had almost no effect.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3820031&mesg_id=3820031

[ClarkUSA]

7. How do you know?

Did that poll ask the tens of thousands of voters who attended the rallies who have been contacted by the Obama campaign? Nope.
You know, for once put aside your partisanship for a moment and be glad that new voters have been pulled into the Democratic fold
which will ultimately - hopefully - benefit our entire ticket in 2008 in IA, NH, and SC. If Streisand did this for Hillary, I know I would
be happy for the party as a whole.

[mtnsnake]

9. "It's about time politics excited potential voters rather than boring them"

I guess you didn't watch that snoozefest in South Carolina. Those people literally had to be begged to get up out of their seats they were so bored.

What will Oprah and Obama try next? A magic show? Good gawd!