What Does Obama Know?
An Obama/Oprah weekend less than a month before Iowa offers its highly touted influence on American politics with many voters focusing on Christmas and the changing dynamics of the 2008 Presidential campaign. Two reports suggest Obama may overestimate the value of enlisting the formidable support of Oprah Winfrey or that some view the effort as merely a publicity stunt. But they do not consider equally valid points that most of campaign politics is a publicity stunt or the almost cult adoration enjoyed by Oprah within an ever-widening and diverse demographic.
There’s the first clue indicating the limited usefulness of the claim above. It is offered by the Edwards campaign. How damaging would it be for Edwards to lose South Carolina? Born in South Carolina and represented the state of North Carolina in the US Senate. Saying blacks won’t vote for Obama simply because of race is like saying women won’t vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton solely based on gender. It is possible that women who detail other reasons for voting for Clinton may be made to avoid being characterized as only a gender vote. To vote solely based on race is as flawed a reason as voting solely on gender but that doesn’t mean American voters won’t do that.
What Obama may know is what anyone can know. While all subsets of the American demographic have value in terms of votes, that value is relative. There are about 40 million black citizens in the United States. And while there are about 42 million Hispanics that recently became the largest minority they are not being discussed as much in terms of votes right now. It is not known whether that estimate of population includes the 12 to 15 million illegals but the same political math applies.
Not all 40 million blacks will vote. Some will be in the apathetic American group. Some will be too young to vote. Some will vote for GOP candidates. So if you assume a maximum of 75% of the population voting which is generous, you’re left with 30 million votes. If you assume a close call between party votes it is about a 50/50 proposition based on the last two Presidential races. Now you are down to an available pool of 15 million votes. Factor in Clinton’s poll numbers as well as Edwards and Obama may be targeting 6 or 7 million voters. But that would be available with or without Oprah and even noticeable swings would only effect one or two states that may not matter if Iowa doesn’t work out well even though currently the race there is a tie.
Obama is looking at the big picture on this one or he is an idiot. The only part about this that spells publicity stunt is having Oprah involved so the media pays more attention. There is no way to separate the Oprah factor based on demographic or state or race or gender. Obama is going for the broad appeal, the media attention and hoping the favorable household word or words of Oprah rub off onto his campaign.
In the end, I doubt that she will get that many black or female voters to give Clinton the hot-potato routine. Obama’s campaign should not overestimate her influence. Oprah is persuasive and she is powerful, but it is unlikely that she can convince many primary voters that it is worth rejecting Clinton and embracing Obama.
The writer above may be ignoring the fact that combined with Clinton’s recent downward spiral plus Obama’s poll numbers rising the Oprah factor may be just the needed push to give Obama Iowa in the Dems nomination race. Even Sean Hannity expressed on Friday that a news story almost had him feeling sorry for Obama. It seems Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was ready to call an emergency vote for Saturday that would directly conflict with Obama’ Oprah strategy. Hannity went as far as to suggest the Clinton’s would have encouraged Reid to do this. Yo can fill in the rest of the blanks but the point is Obama’s tide may be turning. This is not to predict a nomination victory for him, at least not yet, but massive leads in the polls and early states for Clinton is certainly in question now.
Readers should not forget that sometimes political tricks are not only devised for what appears to be the objective when they are uncovered but for more subtle effects as well. An example relates to the notion that Clinton has a stumble trend lately due to Obama’s campaign advances on her lead. Could the local campaign staffer who sent the inflammatory emails about Obama been sacrificed to fall on a sword for Clinton? Just sending the emails and getting the story in the press would serve the purpose of deflecting criticism of Clinton as being responsible for the dirty trick yet getting the message in the mind of some voters with the press coverage.
All this talk starting with Clinton attacking Obama much earlier as ‘naive and irresponsible’ on foreign policy and her experience of meeting heads of state with Bill as superior may be out classed by Obama’s campaign strategy of late.
a related post at Right Truth, ‘Oprah has spoken’