Word: oprah
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...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...
...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.") That recipe was calibrated to reassure the audience that neither Oprah nor Obama was compromising here - that Obama's ambition to be a candidate of nobility would not be diminished by Oprah's status as a consumer guide. She even...
...Obama's Oprah offensive was calibrated not just to get women's support - though of course, that would be nice - but to get Iowa's women to pay attention to the race, full stop. In 2004, just 66,690 of 340,241 female registered Democrats in Iowa caucused. Even a few thousand more could make a difference; sure enough, with Oprah as a sweetener, 1,385 people (no gender statistics were available) worked four-hour volunteer shifts for Obama in order to qualify for a ticket to Winfrey's appearance. (The campaign distributed a total of 12,000 tickets...
...Obama was making gains with Iowa women even before Oprah's arrival - a November Des Moines Register poll showed Obama topping Hillary Clinton with Iowa women for the first time, with his 31% to Clinton's 26% - and Winfrey's appearance certainly kept up the momentum. When she took the stage in a purple velvet suit, the mostly female crowd exploded in joy. Many women were moved to tears. "Iowa - Hellloo! Hellloo!" yelled Winfrey. "Oh my goodness. At last, I'm here...
...real effect of Oprah on Iowa won't be known until the caucus, but in the short term her cameo appeared to achieve what the Obama campaign hoped it would. "Obama's got some really good ideas," said Spurlin at the end of the rally. "But then so does Hillary, and I liked her husband a lot." Sure enough, Bill Clinton will be in Des Moines on Monday, and Spurlin may go see him as well. If nothing else, Des Moines is drawing the A-List...