Oprah-Obama Campaign Tour Gets Huge Crowds

Comments (15)

keith wrote on December 10, 2007 9:01 AM:

Eric:

You forgot the 11000 in Cedar Rapids.

ABH wrote on December 10, 2007 9:07 AM:

"among the largest, if not the largest..." Classic.

NYer wrote on December 10, 2007 9:12 AM:

Or, the mention of the fact that I read that at one appearance people were leaving after Oprah during Obama's speech. Maybe some people wanted to see Oprah. The NY Times says in South Carolina he got cheers for the end of Bush administration but no cheers for negative statements on Hillary. Maybe they just came to see him and check him out. We'll have to wait and see.

eriday wrote on December 10, 2007 9:25 AM:

This seems like an underreported story. I believe this is the turning point in the campaign. 29,000 people at a political rally for the primary is huge! "The crowds were among the largest, if not the largest" . Do your homework so I don't have to do it for you:

From salon.com "Staffers couldn't confirm whether it was the largest ever for a nonincumbent presidential candidate prior to the start of the formal primary season."

The sophistication of Obama's campaign is showing. Hillary peaked during the summer when it didn't mean anything. Obama looks to be peaking just as voters go to the primaries and caucuses. Say what you want, but he seems to be running a very smart campaign, which hopefully will translate to a smart presidential administration.

For the record, I love all the democratic candidates (even grandpa Gravel), the reporting here and elsewhere that make me believe the Democrats will win next year is what helps me get through this very dark winter. Keep up the good work.

keith wrote on December 10, 2007 9:26 AM:

NYer:

He (Obama) noted that Oprah was going to get people out, but that he had to close the show. She did her part and from most media accounts he did his. Only time will tell if it had any impact on the dynamics of the race. One very smart thing his campaign did was having people at the South Carolina event call four SC voters from the stadium. That's really thinking outside the proverbial box.

Derek wrote on December 10, 2007 9:37 AM:

Keith - The only problem with the phone bank is it made people uncomfortable.

Those who were firmly behind Obama probably called, but the others who came for Oprah and were undecided were a bit put off.

Richard L. Adlof wrote on December 10, 2007 9:54 AM:

Oprah can spread all the estrogen power she wants on Obama . . . He still has been running to the right of Her Royal Crownship for the last five weeks and I will never forgive him for saying his vote and voice does not matter when it comes to defending the citizenry against the fascist plutocrats presently in the White House and their toadies.

DTM wrote on December 10, 2007 9:55 AM:

It of course is an open question how well these events will translate into actual votes, but at a minimum they created a weekend of positive press. And there are not all that many weekends left before Iowa.

savvy wrote on December 10, 2007 9:58 AM:

It continues to amaze me how the media refuses to cover the significance of the Obama campaign in terms of the numbers of folks that come to see him and how he inspires the electorate.

They want to talk about folks coming to see Oprah and not Obama while they fail to mention the huge crowds he was able to have come out just to hear him, before Oprah even made her endorsement. Crowds of 20K in Austin and 24K in NYC and another 21K in ATL are historically significant yet the media continues to minimize this man's campaign.

What Oprah has done for Obama is bring out people who may not ever come to see a politician and she enabled him to get media exposure that has been unwilling to cover him on the issues or his campaign.

I am happy that Oprah was willing to provide this level of support to provide the media attention from mainstream press and TV they have been unwilling to provide.

When I knew how perverse it was was when the NYTimes devoted their Sunday articles to HRClinton and talked about Chelsea as if she was on par with Oprah. All so that they could bury the significance of Oprah and Obama this weekend on inside pages.

The flippant characterization of this as oprahlooza is also a term to make diminish and disregard how impactful these events were.

I was offended by the use of the words 'messianic' in Ben Smith's Politico column and his reference to Jesus Christ, I felt it was just another way to disparage and disrespect the impact on politics Obama is having on the electorate. It is terrible how the media will spin this as some religious event whenObama has the capacity to insipire folks and make them willing to wake up from the apathy and cynicism they have about politics, to have that construed as some religious moment is awful. But that is the press. They want to deny the power of the language Barack speaks and how he transcends races, ages, and partisianship while he transforms American politics. Rahtehr than address that the blogs and mainstream media are dismissive and disdainful.

If the press gave fair and balanced coverage Obama would have long since run away with the Democratic primaries. It is apalling how this write up here on TPM-EC is so brief for what was clearly an historical political event in terms of the magnitude of people alone who came out for it.

keith wrote on December 10, 2007 9:59 AM:

Derek:

Phonebanking makes MOST people uncomfortable.

Richard wrote on December 10, 2007 10:00 AM:

Richard - I'd like a source for your comment but it's a given that his vote is worthless. Any good things the Dems would want to pass, even with their majorities on both sides, mean squat because they will never get a super majority to be veto proof. The vast majority of repubs are still lockstep in line with the whitehouse and have used every trick in the book to stall or kill any meaningful legislation.

Then we could get into the fact that the Dem leadership are friggin cowards and cave every chance they can.

Derek wrote on December 10, 2007 10:02 AM:

Damn...that was me. Not richard @ 10:00

DonnaG wrote on December 10, 2007 10:52 AM:

savvy @ 9:58am,

Thanks for posing some important points about the media's failure to report to the nation with accuracy and full measure on the Obama campaign's power and reach.

I happen to think that this disconnect follows the original weave of the expectation/strategy to promote Hillary as inevitable, which created early nationwide polling reflecting [Clinton] name recognition and Bill's coat-tails popularity. It is very much not in the interests of the powers-that-be, which includes the MSM, to counter that inevitability meme with news of ground-breaking accomplishments of this newcomer named Obama.

Not only is Obama anethema to a media that thrives on the adrenaline rushes of divisiveness [reporting ringside on an endless wrestling match, which the Clintons, by accident or otherwise, prefectly embody], but Obama is anethema to a corporate world enjoying regulation-lax profit-making in the shadows of that divisiveness.

Part of what I see as Obama's genius is that he recognized that ONLY an overwhelming grass roots movement could, or in the end, would counter the status quo. Whether he can pull this off is still the question, but he certainly has amassed an army of citizens.
But, meanwhile, this is just the latest competition we have been seeing in the past few decades between the people and the status quo, with the media not exactly impartial witnesses.

Jim Martin wrote on December 10, 2007 4:28 PM:

It's true that the media reportage of the Dem primary race is hardly "fair and balanced." And there's probably some truth to the idea that the bias favors HRC over Obama. But it's at least as true, if not more so, that the media coverage favors both HRC and Obama over the rest of the Democratic field. The media are about money, celebrity and names, and they are perfectly happy keeping our minds off of policy and issues.

Meanwhile, Oprah was for the war before she was against it, as Bill Moyers demonstrates. She had war cheerleaders Judith Miller and Kenneth Pollack on her show in 2002, together with Ahmad Chalabi's right hand man, and she completely shut down a studio audience member who had a different view than the one she wanted to promote at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqVtRJeXxXM

donna L. wrote on December 10, 2007 5:00 PM:

Jim Martin -- I looked at your link of Oprah before the war. Its disappointing, but like the majority of Amercans she went looking for answers from politicians and experts and got bum advice. Too bad Obama was not as well known then. The american people needed to hear what he had to say -- but really, all too few were ready to listen. I am grateful that Oprah and the rest of the country are listening now.

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