Obama, incapable of winning the nomination on his crappy record of late, taps Oprah estrogen feast . . . News att eleven.

Watching CNN right now and it's pretty interesting watching them try place Chelsea Clinton and Dorothy Rodham in the same celebrity class as Oprah. Personally I think it's a nonsensical comparison, especially when the Clinton star (Bill) was out on the trail this weekend.

Watching the events on CNN and CSPAN, I was struck that Oprah spoke with passion and humor and energy ... and that Obama got up after and, well, didn't. Following her (and Michelle), he looked more empty than ever, at least to me.

I guess now is the part where we find out if people in early primary states are up for taking voting advice from talk show hosts. There's always a first time for everything. Maybe they should have brought Dr. Phil along though.

As I have previously noted, it is doubtful whether many people would vote for Obama just because Oprah supports him. Instead, Oprah can help get people give Obama a serious look (which she obviously accomplished), but Obama has to seal the deal himself.

That said, even if Oprah had no direct effect whatsoever, it is hard to believe a weekend of positive press coverage was not helpful. Indeed, if nothing else it kept the current press narrative going for another weekend (and now into the following week), and the current press narrative is one the Obama campaign justifiably appears to like.

Marc
Oprah is from the South. Hillary Clinton is from a rich white suburb of Chicago.

As a rejoinder to myself, HRC does have Florida sitting at just the right place on the calendar, and absent a tidal wave she does have that one locked up (with all the retiree's and go-slow dems), even if Edwards has dropped by then.

Should be an interesting season.

As an Obama guy, I do cringe a little when I hear him (and Oprah) pulling out the southern drawl. I remember hating when Gore did this (even though he's from TN, I know...but he had dropped the accent when out of the south).

Everybody can see through it -- but whatever, it's the substance that matters. And both O's have it.

It's a bait a switch......they feed you HRC you say no way I want Obama, they pull the race card knowing he will be the easier one to beat, to negate the gender vote, we lose the White House. CheckMate Buddy. Game. Set. Mate. Fooled Again. Bet The House. You Heard It Here 1st.

She ain't the best, but she will get us in the White House. If Obama is smart,he should ride in 2nd take it when she leaves.

No, I've heard that ad-nauseum from any number of hardbitten democrats who can't get over what geniuses those dastardly Republitards are.

What I'll bet the house on is that I don't want to live in a country that can only muster up two families to rule it for 30 years. And I don't want to reward the DLC candidate who always tacks as close to the Republitards as possible, who falls all over herself to enhance Bush's retarded war-rhetoric and backs his disasterous foreign policy.

If you won't back a candidate because of his race, even for the most pragmatic reasons, you are supporting racism. I have no doubts that the Republitards will try to pull out active and latent racism to try and beat Obama...I just don't care and am not going to vote for third best because I am afraid of that.

Speaking from experience, Hillary, Oprah and Obama are totally getting a bum rap for switching accents. When you move from one accent region (or group) to another, most people tend to pick it up the new accent and shed the old one. If you leave, you lose the accent. When you're back among those who use it, you put it back on again.

I Moved from the mountains to the flatlands and then further south and picked up all three very different (to a Southerner's ear) accents within a month. I regularly catch myself switching between them automatically depending on where I am.

Granted, all three accents are of places where "you ain't from around her, are ya?" is always the prelude some unpleasantness of one kind or another, protective response.

Clinton News Network gave HRC lots of coverage this weekend - why? is it because like most MSM the reporters with the most seniority got to pick which candidate they wanted to cover, the HRC elites grant access and they are seeing OBAMA and thier junior peers becoming elevated along with OBAMA.

Also - Oprah is brilliant - she wore purple, her hair was done in a more ethnic style and she use black slang even in Iowa. WHY? Simple - in SC and the South in general the black vote or lack there of will end HRC's campaign permanently. While fighting for womens votes is what the MSM is talking about - smart polls know that the black vote is almost always a solid block at 90% plus. Oprah already moved it 18% in SC in the latest poll - within a week HRC will be down 10 points in SC and at election time she will receive less than 15% of the black vote - She is toast - besides who would vote for the Kindergarten Cop - devisive - attacking one of the Dem's brightest stars and hope for the future.

Having watched the full South Carolina event live on the intertubes (and bits of Iowa too), it was striking how unglitz the events were. Oprah sounded genuine and well reasoned. Michelle sounded fully on board; without the spousal repartee and put downs that, while refreshing to us who tire of the adoring gaze, raised concerns among many acquaintances. And Obama was right on. Hearing the crowd roar it is all about the war in Iraq; the decision making, the group think and the political calculations that underlay the drum beat for war has tarnished all those who were in Washington in 2002 and 2003. Time for change.

Bottom line: Despite his followers protestations to the contrary, Obama continues again and again to prove that he and Clinton are about as substantively different as Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

loki,

In my experience it doesn't take any time at all for people to switch back and forth, and I doubt there is any necessary trigger. Again to continue my prior example, I am pretty sure my South Carolinian friend started speaking with a thicker accent as soon as we were headed south on I-95, long before she had actually started conversing with a real live South Carolinian.

As for whether politicians deliberately trigger it--I'm sure that happens, but that isn't necessarily the case. I particularly don't think that is likely to be the case when those politicians already spent a lot of time in the past with people who speak like that. If the politician perceives themselves as speaking to such people, it would just make sense for them to slip into those same familiar patterns again.

Which really is a defense of Clinton as much as anyone. She has spent a lot of time in Arkansas, and a lot of time with black people. It just isn't surprising if she takes on related speech patterns when, say, giving speeches to black people in the South, and I don't think that has to be pure political calculation on her part.

SickofOprahbama,

Is a troll by the GOP. How is the University of Illinois Chi Hospital HIS his hospital? This sick twisted website proclaims that Obama in some weird way is responsibile for the way hospitals treat uninsured patients. The hospital situation in this country is dispicable but to somehow create a whole website creating some kind of fictious link is disgusting. TMP moderators please do something about this disgusting attack ad troll.

Also, DTM...

Spending a lot of time in a place like Clinton has in Arkansas is one thing, but Obama was in New Hampshire on the 9th, then went south on the 10th and delivered his "southern" speech. Do you think his NH speech sounded southern preacher-ish? Sounded grammatically incorrect in all the right places?

If one listens to the right wing radio nuts they are trying their best to scare us into running away from HRC and into the arms of Obama and or Edwards. Mostly Obama now and it's a reason for that, the reason is they (the Right wings) feel it will be easier to attack him with new race/black/muslum material and can't rehash the old material of HRC without looking petty. Look past your noses for a minute.

If one listens to the right wing radio nuts they are trying their best to scare us into running away from HRC and into the arms of Obama... the reason is they (the Right wings) feel it will be easier to attack him with new race/black/muslum material and can't rehash the old material of HRC without looking petty.

Er, o.k. Let us grant that you are right that those on the right believe as much. Their beliefs on the subject are not really important unless they are correct in their beliefs. That is, it does not matter that (e.g.) Rush Limbaugh *thinks* that Sen Obama would be the easier deomcrat to beat unless Sen Obama really *is* the easier democrat to beat. That Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly (etc) think as much, however, is really beside the point. Few of us here are given to let Rush Limbaugh do our thinking for us.

So, *is* Sen Obama a weaker candidate in the general election than is Sen Clinton? I cannot see how. I grant that there are perhaps some voters out there who would vote for a white democratic man who will not vote for a black democratic man, but I am hard pressed to believe that there are any more than a handful of voters out there who would vote for a white democratic woman (especially if said woman is Hillary Clinton) but who would balk at a black democratic man.

The states which Sen Obama will have to write off as lost from the start amount to no more electoral votes than the states that Sen Clinton will have to write off from the start. The states which will go automatically to Sen Clinton without any effort on her part amount to no more electoral votes than the states that would go automatically to Sen Obama without any effort on his.

I just do not see how one might realistically conclude that Obama is in any weaker position than Clinton in the general election, quite regardless of what the Karl Roves or Sean Hannitys of the world might think about the advertising value of Sen Obama's middle name. The folks most susceptible to the approaches of this sort of smear campaign are not going to vote for either Clinton or Obama.