[Disclosure: I have been a diehard Oprah Winfrey fan since the first week she appeared on tv. I have tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get tickets to her show.]
It’s 1987, I’m in a too small elevator heading from the 2nd floor at the State House to Gardiner Auditorium. A Senior advisor is giving Mike Dukakis and Evelyn Murphy a program rundown before they face a meeting of their full staff and Department Heads. “We want to keep it up beat and a lot of give and take…Q & A from the get-go…you know, it will be like, you are Phil Donahue and the Lt. Gov. is Oprah!” At which point the Governor interrupted to ask his staffer, “WHO IS Oprah?” Hmmm…file under “telling moment.”
That was then, this is now…and everyone knows who Oprah is…every viewer’s girl friend, the confidant, the fellow cheating dieter, the reading club buddy, the actress, the shopper, the decorator, the charitable giver, the celebrities’ cheerleader and the celebrity herself…it’s been quite a ride. What I most liked about Oprah was that she didn’t seem to take herself too seriously…she was one of the girls…
I have bought books at Oprah’s suggestion. Some were good and a few were a waste of time and money…but, in spite of her on-air pleading, even Oprah could not talk me into buying a run of the mill Josh Groban Christmas CD.
More than a few of my fellow Oprah-devotees have noticed in the last few years that as Oprah’s celebrity and Forbes billionaire ranking has grown to astronomical heights, she herself has begun to change, too. (She’s only human.) Instead of just bringing on experts to talk about this or that, she injects her self-perceived expertise. Conversation can border on pontification. “I’m just like you” does not ring as true as it once did. But, her fans are still legion because she managed to avoid the 2 third rails of afternoon chick based talk shows…politics and religion.
I confess that even I was taken back when she had Tom Cruise jumping on the couch while she adoringly exuded praise for Tom’s new love interest (whom he dumped his wife and adopted children for)…I thought she looked as foolish as he did…but, that’s Hollywood and Tom is not trying to be leader of the free world.
Now Oprah is selling more than Groban CDs or books by Dr. Oz…she is selling a presidential candidate the same way she has sold any number of books… which now REDUCES her to the same level as so many stars and starlets who try to use box office to up votes for some candidate or other.
What made her special, I fear, is fast becoming a thing of the past. I understand why she is doing this. Truth be told, I do not think if Sen. Obama were a caucasian, former State legislator from Illinois who had not yet completed one full term in the US Senate, that his “Audacity of Hope” book would have even made it to her book club selection.
I do not know whether or not her stadium appearances will be filled with folks that want to see her and are willing to put up with a few political speeches to get a free seat or if Obama will get a lasting bump from her over the top endorsement.
But if the latter is the case, I think America has jumped the shark along with Oprah and that it is time to start electing President by running an American Idol Show with 1-800- call-in voting. That will end the minute-by-minute polls, end the need for buy-a-candidate fundraising, and we can give the call $$ proceeds to the Extreme Home skinny blonde guy and he can build a house on Sunday night for a deserving and heart-wrenching family.
If Mike Dukakis didn’t know who she was in 1987, good for him.
I wandered through the muck of celebrity worship online, and found something mentioned here, about the fact that Oprah has managed to prosper as she does not employ writers from the Writers’ Guild, currently on strike. Her staff is non-union, and the article mentions the PA who averaged 87 hours a week for an extended period. Unlike shows such as The Office and Family Guy which clearly have their sympathies with the strikers, Oprah is pumping out more episodes, unconcerned with solidarity with the “little people”.
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p>Hardly the person who shares my values, but apparently Obama’s cool with them.
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p>““
What I don’t say here, I say here.
Her staff is non-union? Does that include her movie production company? I am honestly surprised.
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p>But, Obama is not courting union support, is he? I did not think so. When he spoke to the Firefighters International meeting he never actually uttered the word “union.”
…the genuflection before Dope-rah. Her only claim to fame is that she was an actress as a relatively minor character in the movie The Color Purple. The genuflection toward Dope-rah is about as dumb as the genuflection toward Don I’m-An-Ass In the Morning.
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p>Note to Sabutai above: maybe she pays her staff well enough that they don’t feel the need to unionize. That strategy is not unheard of.
she is a talented 1) black 2) woman who has succeeded in being taken seriously, and succeeded financially. that’s huge, even if you might not agree that what she talks about is important.
…you were the person who brought up race and sex, not I.
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p>Oprah, or she with some in here public relations operations, figured out was how to publicize her to sufficient number of dopes in the audience that she was being pitched to, to make her a financial success. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Dr. PHIListine has been doing exactly the same thing–and he is white and male.
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p>I haven’t made an exhaustive analysis, but I will suggest to you that TV talk shows are incredibly cheap to produce, and that is why they are popular with syndicators and broadcasters who buy the programs.
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p>Now, I’m sure that you will tell us when you will be trusting Oprah with domestic, or, more importantly, foreign policy
Where did you get that idea that I trust her political opinions? I was just responding to your query above. I don’t give a fig who she or any other national personality endorses, but I can see why others do.
…very carefully
…I don’t give a damn whether or not you do.
Raj is officially starting to annoy me.
Raj is officially starting to annoy me.
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p>I’m supposed to give a tinkers damn whether or not you are annoyed? Your inability to respond with anything substantive annoys me, but I don’t declare that publicly.
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p>After you get off your high Shetland pony and get into the Agora, I may pay attention to your concerns. Until then, no.
Does anyone beside Raj and I understand just how lame this is? Oprah Winfrey? You folks are getting all excited about some afternoon lamo who elicits gasps of excitement from who? This is pathetic beyond endurance and speaks volumes. I am actually quite astonished, Just when you think that people are raising the level of discourse they default back to absolute foolishness, and banality. Ms. Winfrey goes home every evening absolutely incredulous at the gross ignorance of her audience.
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p>John Edwards new line on a political ad this morning on Channel 8: “Together we can”—-no shit!
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p>Oprah Winfrey? Get a life—and a clue!
You really did answer. No further parsing required.
on the list
…she is one of the wealthiest people in the US and one of the wealthiest women in the world. She came from absolutely nothing. Her show may in fact be dopey and cheap, but that doesn’t take away from her business savvy and what she has accomplished. Being a Black woman with $2.5 Billion dollars buys much influence.
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p>I’m not an Oprah fan, but I bet to most people “The Color Purple” is a footnote to how they know Oprah. It’d be a mistake to trivialize her accomplishments.
…The Color Purple it is unlikely that anyone would have ever heard of her.
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p>Regarding US$2B, um, maybe. To channel a Michael Caine quotation to Leonardo deCaprio, it’s never as much as you think it is and it doesn’t last as long as you think it will.
Oprah may have gotten a start in TCP, but she’s known for her show, similar to the way that Ahnuld got started bodybuilding, but is known for his movies. At least for anyone under 50.
Oprah is now known for her show. But riddle me this. Would she have ever gotten her show but for her role in The Color Purple? I don’t know, neither do you but that is irrelevant. The issue is that the Dope-rahs apparently pay attention to her opinions on more than a few issues, including political ones
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p>Your analogy with Ahnold is interesting, but the question is the same. BTW, His steroid consumption must have been astounding. I’ve seen a picture of him in his late teens in Graz, and he was a presentable looking young man. Roid consumption is not good for the heart.
Ahnuld took ‘roids. They all did.
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p>Of course Oprah got the show due to TCP, but she maintained it over decades, and built a production company, and that has nothing to do with it. And she got the role on TCP because of earlier roles. Next you’ll be saying she was a forc ebecause of a bit part in a 5th grade play. I’ve never understood how people can claim to be bored by popular culture while also reserving authority when speaking about it.
Of course Oprah got the show due to TCP, but she maintained it over decades,
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p>on the other hand, maybe she had a good syndication and production company.
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p>I seriously do not know what her relationship is with her syndication/production company. You are aware, I’m sure, that Jerry Springer is nothing more than an employee of his show’s syndicator. Rush Lamebrain owns a part of his radio show’s syndication, and his syndicator got someone else (John Fund) to write books that he (Lamebrain) put his name on. There are numerous business models with TV and radio talk shows.
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p>Assuming that Oprah herself is as wealthy as has been hypothesized is not necessarily accurate.
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p>But that is aside from the issue. The issue is, should her political views be paid attention to, merely because she (undoubtedly) has more money than, for example, I do. She has a megaphone, but I, for one, don’t pay attention to people with megaphones. I turn off the TV.
First off, she owns her own production company and syndicates the show herself. These are useful tidbits if you’re going to discuss her at all.
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p>And from a philosophical point of view — as in fairness HLPeary began the discussion — her undue influence on the process is worthy of discussing. But in a much more pragmatic sense, the efficacy of her endorsement is what interests me. And as I said, a record that is at best ambiguous about labor crimps her influence in a Democratic primary and thus Obama’s benefit.
…and chief face of “her own” production company, but that means next to nothing in relation to what the business model–who actually owns or controls the production company–is.
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p>You’re a smart guy–I’m sure that you understand the difference.
…It was the highest rated talk show in the Chicago market. The first episode aired January 2 1984. No doubt the movie helped her career exposure-wise, but she was poised to have a hit show with or without the movie.
…do you know how long it takes to get a movie from production to distribution? Sometimes several years.
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p>Irrespective of that, do you really believe that she would have a national audience except for her appearance in The Color Purple? I doubt it. Phil Donohue would not have had a national audience except for the fact that he moved his show from Dayton OH(!) where he started, to Chicago many years ago.
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p>NB: I’m from Cincinnati, and I recall Donohue’s show on a little network that included WLW TV very early on.
Oprah Winfrey is a prima facie case!
Will she help or hurt Obama? Or neither?
Aside from a shared racial background, would she really be choosing Barack as the most prepared to lead the free world?
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p>And all celebrity endorsements aside, are the Democrats setting themselves up for a fall by limiting their choice to the current frontrunners who may in fact turn out to be the easiest (and only) Dems the GOP can beat?
i think she’ll help him by getting him exposure to people who otherwise wouldn’t bother to hear a pol speak. i’ve heard a number of people interviewed on tv who were quite honest about their reasons for showing up to events oprah was hosting for obama. they came for her. but they stayed to listen. obama is bound to appeal to some portion of these political newbies. via oprah, he’s getting an audience he otherwise wouldn’t have.
i mean i heard them on radio. an unimportant detail, unless you want to dig up the npr stories and listen yourself.
frankly, that you’re even asking that question is insulting. it implies that she is that shallow or bigoted. Here is what she said about why she endorses Obama.
It is the question everyone is wondering about but too pc to voice. There are women who will vote Hillary because they want to see a woman elected. There are those who will vote Bill Richardson because they share his Hispanic heritage. And let’s not even get into the varying shades of religion that link some voters to like-minded candidates.
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p>I think it is a given that in the case of the Oprah-Obama connection, the greatest compelling reason for her support is their shared racial background. She understandably wants him to make history for their race. The question remains, were he not African-American, would she be supporting him based only on his experience as a State Senator, his yet to be completed first term as US Senator and his Audacity of Hope book (which was long on the rhetoric of hope and short on audacious specifics.) Maybe she would, but I’m not certain of that.
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p>
on the subject? she is quite clear about why she endorses Obama, and race didn’t figure into it. is it a factor? perhaps. but it really is insulting, and not at all “ooh i’m cool because i’m not restrained by pc rules” for you to keep pressing this has if it is really, truly her main reason for supporting him.
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p>as for Obama’s race: he’s biracial. why aren;t you wondering whether Oprah shouldn’t better be endorsing another woman instead of this European-American? he is as much European-American as he is African-American. it is short-sighted to see him as only a black candidate.
For heaven’s sake, of course her statement asserts she is supporting him because she believes in what he believes in..whatever that specifically is…(David Axelrod would not have a mention of race in the statement, that’s for sure)
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p>…just like women who want the first woman president elected will say they support Hillary Clinton because she smart, experienced and has a full understanding of the issues that the nation is confronting. Not many will just say I support her first and foremost because she is a woman regardless of her experience and stands on issues.
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p>In answer to your question, Laurel, I am not wondering at all why Oprah is not supporting another woman. The history of women in this country teaches us that race trumps gender in such decisions. If I were 100% African-American or even just 25% African-American and someone who shared my background had a shot at the top prize, I would not have to think twice…race would trump gender…the white women could wait for a turn at history.
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p>I am looking at all of the Democratic candidates. I am looking at their resumes…their individual experience, their expertise on one issue or another, what they have done in the past on domestic and foreign policy issues…frankly, charisma is not my top criteria for a president…in the final analysis, I think both of the current Dem. frontrunners could indeed make history in the nominating process, but are not the strongest choices to send into the arena with the GOP.
as to why you even asked whether there could be a non-race reason for her choice. you don’t seem open to alternative explanations.
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p>as for looking at resumes, i am not an obama supporter nor a supporter of anyone yet. however, lots of people, even white ones, do seem to see something more in him than charisma. just ask them (will you believe their answers?). it’s best to acknowledge that than insist that they are all wrong or wrong-headed. because they may not be, even if you (and i) can’t see how.
if you are stumped it is because you have read into my posts what you wanted to…Sen. Obama has many supporters who believe he is the best choice for whatever their personal reasons…however, this thread was about only one supporter, Oprah Winfrey. She is the only one I was talking about. I stand by my opinion of why she is supporting Sen. Obama.
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p>And I also stand by my opinion that either Obama or Clinton may be, in fact, weaker candidates against the GOP nominee than some of the other Dem.s running. Because it will be an uphill fight for either an African-American or a woman to break through historical ceilings this year…not impossible, but damn difficult. Given the closeness of the last 2 presidential elections, especially in the battleground states, there is not much margin for error.
i have been wondering if obama might actually do better than a white guy for this simple reason: for some, a vote for him would be a cathartic opportunity to discharge some of the white guilt they feel.
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p>i’m not concerned about any of the dem candidates facing off against whoever the repub candidate is. the reason is that all of our candidates are good, whereas look at the mess the republicans have to contend with: who is most mean spirited and blood-thirsty yet had the mostest directest line to god. any dem will stack up well against that disgusting bunch of slimes.
I don’t know which I disagree with more: the poster’s belief that Oprah’s pitch for Obama is somehow off-side, or the self-evidently stupid comments in the thread dismissing Oprah’s career, talent, and business savvy.
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p>Oprah’s work for Obama is significant and should have an impact.
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p>Oprah stood out in daytime talk because she capitalized best on the 80s boom in therapeutic self-help. Trauma-recovery was the main thrust of Oprah’s early national career, culminating in her own admissions of having been raped as a child, giving birth at 14, and later of having gotten into drugs in her 20s. If her role in The Color Purple helped her career, it was not simply because she appeared in a big Hollywood movie, but that her role and the whole film were an instance of exactly this culture, and at the location where it is received as most authentic: black history. (I.e., where the trauma is most easily accepted as real and where self-healing soothes the national burden of guilt.) Self-help remains Oprah’s main focus, though more in the direction of self-improvement than therapy; she usually translates her other main topics, celebrity puffery and luxury consumerism, into lifestyle homiletics.
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p>She has done all this in a style that draws loosely on African-American church traditions but in a way that is especially friendly to white middle class women.
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p>All in all, she’s the #1 franchise, in the #1 medium, in a profoundly influential current in American culture, originating in the rise of evangelical Xtianity in the 1800s and producing some of the leading bestsellers of the 20th c.
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p>To dismiss Oprah’s influence, and to dismiss the way her role dovetails with Obama’s message and style, it to deny reality. It will have a positive effect. Those who feel America, and the presidency, has been through a trauma and is in need of healing in an uplifting, quasi-religious style, will respond. It emphasizes this aspect of a candidate that counterbalances nicely the perception that he is too cerebral.
Thanks for responding to my original post. You make some good points. I am not underestimating, and surely not dismissing, her power as a celebrity or a saleswoman. There is no denying that she will help Obama draw crowds from her legion of fans and admirerers (I am one of them.)
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p>The question is, will she be able to move them to political action long after the events are over? Will Obama be able to convert crowds who turn out to see Oprah into votes for himself at caucuses and primaries?
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p>When she stands in front of a crowd and says, “Iowa, he is the one.” Will the women of Iowa, NH and SC who are the direct target of this whole Oprah tour move on her say-so…or will they choose a different book next month?
“The question is, will she be able to move them to political action long after the events are over?”
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p>Not likely to grassroots involvment — eg, caucusing — but certainly to voting if they are potential stay-at-homes or low-info Republican primary voters. I say anyone moved to go to an Oprah event can be moved to vote, and to vote for her man.
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p>Thus Oprah’s influence will surely be greater in primary states than in the Iowa caucus. Probably more in S.C. than in N.H.
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p>So the nature of the Iowa caucus and its gate-keeping role probably weighs in favor of your skepticism.
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p>The effect would be at its greatest among swing voters in the general election — if Obama gets that far, of course.
A major part of Bill Clinton’s appeal was his ability to project empathy. Oprah has the same thing, and that’s why she became a billionaire. (Although I agree with the earlier comments that she may not be able to sustain the same appeal to her audience after X number of years of living in luxury.)
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p>Princess Diana had the empathy thaing, too, although she certainly lacked the rags-to-riches story that Oprah and Bill have.
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p>Oprah and Bill Clinton’s bona fide rise from poverty and adversity is something that Barack and Hillary both lack.
Do Obama or Clinton claim to have risen from poverty and adversity? Obama describes a middle-class upbringing in Dreams From My Father
Oprah’s story is a tough one coming out of poverty in the American South. Obama’s upbringing was quite different…his was a middle class childhood and an Ivy League education.
…I feel your pain–whether or not he/she has ever felt it.
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p>And that is one reason why I considered Billy boy a snake-oil salesman. He was an excellent actor, and I never believed a word that he said.
You might try “parsing” — to use your word — Shack’s comments and you will discover that you have missed the point.
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p>Shack is discussing what makes for a strong candidate and not what wins the R.A.J. Seal of Approval. Your individual response (N=1) is statistically uninteresting — well to those of us not amusing ourselves by collecting lists of your preferences, it is uninteresting.
…argue with an idiot, KB. He’ll bring you down to his level and beat you with experience every time.
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p>As has been demonstrated repeatedly on this blog, and no doubt will be again.
You’re right.
Shack had only one comment above the one that I responded to, and it did not suggest anything other than what I responded to.
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p>Now, y’all run along and attend to your knitting.
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p>(Warning: loud, and at times profane)
because using mentally unstable people as the butt of a joke is a really ugly thing to do.
I don’t agree with raj often, but I wouldn’t call him “mentally unstable”.
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p>As for the kid, it’s known around the Internet that he’s actually an aspiring actor along the lines of lonelygirl15 — it’s even on the notes of this YouTube vid. Perhaps I should have made that clear.
at the expense of mentally impaired people. it helps to know that a real mentally impaired person wasn;t exploited for that video, but the use of it still bothers me. sorry, we will just have to disagree on this.
We don’t need to all be middle schoolers.
…Obama could be a green-eyed purple people eater. I lost all respect for him when he decided to pander to the homophobes. And, as far as I can tell Dope-rah hasn’t distanced herself from him on that topic. But I ignore celebrity endorsements in any case.
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p>I’m sure that Laurel will try to set me straight.
that i would try to set you straight on that? nowhere have i said that i support obama or care who oprah endorses. in fact i’ve stated the opposite just up-thread. my comments have been on understanding how other people view her and the probable positive effect of her endorsement on his campaign. i can make these observations without being personally invested in any campaign.
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p>personally, i see obama as a coward in the face of anti-gay bigotry, and just another politician who is willing to look the other way if it will gain him votes. he is clearly wedded to chasing the black fundie vote, and he doesn’t care if he has to let phobic crap ride to do it. to hell with him.
in the same category. Clueless, naive and boringly mediocre mainstream.
The mediocrity I speak of is the comatose state of the general American populace.
And while I trend towards the “left” I know far higher forces have the real power.
http://carolynbaker.net/site/c…
…but if you sneer at the mere ‘populace’ and call them comatose, it doesn’t make them want to vote for you more….
Wow, I really have gone far enough out. I can’t even communicate with people born in my own country anymore.
Terra,terra,terra, and we afraid to click on websites.
… that and a few key Supreme Court justices willing to put you over the top (doesn’t Sandra Day O’Connor regret that bit now…?).
How am I supposed to decide what to think about anything until Dr Phil tells me what to think?
HLPeary, while I am not a fan of the Oprah endorsement hullaballoo, I will respectfully suggest that you are looking at it the wrong way. Oprah is not defined by her past, or by the rungs she climbed on the career ladder. That’s not how politics works, and it’s just not how the world and human beings work. Witness Schwarzaneggar. Witness Reagan. Witness Ben Franklin, for crying out loud, whose only standing to be a diplomat was he was the only person in America the folks in Europe had heard of.
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p>Focus on the reality of who Oprah is and what her professional status is today. The past is prologue, but that’s all.
and it’s not looking too promising.
the number of ads she can sell. She is not alone in that–that is true of any advertising-driven medium. She is the filler between the advertising. Nothing more, nothing less.
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p>If you want to consider that a plus on her political fantasies, feel free. I, for one, do not. She is little more than a latter day carny barker. Note to Laurel: I’ve used that term in regards many other persons engaged in advertising-driven media, so don’t even thing of regailing us with your “she’s black” “she’s female” nonsense.
you’re making no sense. why should i give a rip if you call someone a carny barker, whether they’re black, neuter, or martian? maybe you’ve confused me with centralmassdad, who analyzes your every word.
…that’s where I first read about the nature of America’s advertising-driven media about two decades ago. The “talent” is the filler between ads, chosen to try to get the viewer/listener to stay long enough to watch the ads.
… after she helped give Ah-nold his CA gubernatorial victory in 2003. Ironically, he was also mentioned as a nobody who rose from the ranks of obsecurity into “someone” elsewhere in this diary.
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p>If only I had seen more people write stuff about her then when it would matter, CA might not be suffering from the Gropenator. Then again, they might be anyway, with or without Oprah’s part in it. But her bit certainly didn’t help, especially since it was technically in violation of FCC rules not giving equal time to any of the opposing candidates (let alone the other four that made it to the famous super-debate). But a Republican-controlled FCC wouldn’t dare mess with Oprah.
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p>I’m just thankful she hasn’t done anything as bad since then.
Ahnuld was part of the entertainment industry. Cah-li-fornia has a history of electing people from the entertainment industry into their government. Ronald Reagan. The guy who Reagan replaced. Senators. Ahnuld. It isn’t new.
… he may very well have been elected, with or without her. Not to mention the weak choices opposite him.
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p>Even so, she shouldn’t have put him on without offering alternative choices for prospective voters to consider, and she should have been a bit more persistent about questioning why he didn’t bother to show up to most of the gubernatorial recall debates if she was going to have him on her show, since she was giving him an opportunity to basically get softball questions when he was ducking out just about all but one of the debates, and what do you know… he was the one we needed most at them, since he was the one who made it to the end.
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p>But I don’t have nearly as much of a problem with Oprah as you do. I have uprated a few of your comments panning her (but not all of them, as a few tend to a go a bit over the top) to encourage dissent even about usually teflon figures such as Oprah. 2003 is and has always been the sole major problem that made me rethink America’s love affair with Oprah… I am quite uncomfortable about her doing favors for her friendships with elites like Maria Shriver, if it means she even contributed in a very small way to saddling California with the governor they’re going to have till 2010.
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p>Clearly, it’s not something you hold against her (perhaps because you feel her role in it was totally irrelevant, but for me, it tends to be more about the principle than anything), so we’re definitely not in the same boat about not totally trusting Oprah. That and the fact that she made the petty “no kiss” comment when Al Gore was on, and that’s about it. I am content to let her do what she wants to do, and also content to allow people to criticize her if they choose. But, if the only person who criticized her the way I felt she deserved to be for 2003 (but wasn’t when it mattered) doesn’t see much wrong with her role in the recall, I’m definitely swearing off supporting the few critics she apparently has around.
While I would agree that no celebirty endorsement should be taken too seriously that Oprahs is unique for a variety of reasons.
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p>1)Shes never done it before
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p>-This is significant, it shows she is an apolitical figure that has avoided politics for several reasons and the sincerity of her convictions seem more genuine due to the fact that this is unique for her and not a routine
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p>2)Re: Black Power v Sister Souljah
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p>Your comment that its because she is black that she is endorsing Obama is borderline racist but also logically bankrupt. She is also a woman but did not feel compelled to endorse Hillary Clinton.
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p>In case you feel race matters more to her Id also point out she has never endorsed a black candidate before either, including Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, etc. sure they are more polarizing but Obama is as well which I will address in point 3. She has never endorsed less polarizing black candidates like Roy Kirk, Deval Patrick, or Jesse Jackson Jr. to name a few.
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p>3)Not in her self interest
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p>-As an apolitical figure she appeals to a broad spectrum of an audience, now she isolates very conservative women in the South and Midwest who liked her, people that valued her insight in part because it was not political or liked her show for being an apolitical refuge from cablenews and other outlets, or are backing another candidate. She only gains to lose viewers by doing this so it has to be another reason
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p>4)Obama inexperienced
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p>You said she wouldnt endorse an inexperienced white candidate, first let me say that there was an IL State Senator with no experience in the federal government and even less time in the IL State Senate than Obama, his name was Lincoln I think he did a pretty decent job. And she has specifically mentioned the experiences she does like, community organizing, local government, that make Obama fresh and free from the taint of say nearly two decades in Washington a la Hillary Clinton. Id say shed endorse Obama if he was a white guy named Jack Smith with the same ideas, persona, and experience.
…Oprah is campaigning on behalf of Obama because of his race. What I care about is that she is campaigning on behalf of a homophobe.
Where has Barack Obama said or done anything that suggests homophobia, a deep hatred of homosexuals? Outside of MA being for civil unions is a fairly progressive position, one that I highly doubt a homophobe would advance. Has he signed on to the anti marriage amendment? Has he called gays fags? Has he called them sinners and miscreants? Has he called it a lifestyle or a choice like your boy Bill Richardson?
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p>Back that up with evidence.
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p>The minister flap was just that, a political flap, and they didn’t do their homework but that doesnt make Barack homophobic. Back it up Raj!
read up on the donny mcclurkin stuff.
Back that up with evidence.
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p>How many times do we have to rehash the same subject matter on the very same blog?
Using that logic since both Hillary Clinton and George Bush supported the Iraq War they are both homophobes. Or better yet that she is married to the autor of the homophobic Dont ask Dont Tell policy
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p>That doesn’t make any sense. McClurkin endorsed Obama because Obama is a black leader who supports progressive economic and social policies. Yet that reverend also believe gay people, like himself, can be converted back to heterosexuality. It was a fois pais of grand proportions, but it does not indict Obama as a homophobe, and considering that there are more important issues than gay rights such as the war, foreign policy, and healthcare where Obama is heads over heels more progressive than Hillary Clinton, and lets be honest at this point those are the only two that could win the nomination, I cant see how one political gaffe should cost him the nomination.
Using that logic since both Hillary Clinton and George Bush supported the Iraq War they are both homophobes.
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p>has to do with homophobia. And, quite frankly, I am not really interested in your explanation. You don’t have the slightest idea what you are writing about. Apparently, you are sufficiently uninformed to know that the issue is not that McClurkin endorsed Obama, but that Obama prominently featured McClurkin at one of his (Obama’s) campaign stops.
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p>If it were merely that McClurkin endorsed Obama, I wouldn’t give a tinker’s damn; a candidate is not responsible for every nut-case who endorses him or her. But it is that fact that Obama highlighted McClurkin in his campaiign that makes it a tinker’s damn. Maybe you do not understand the difference, but maybe you should.
Bush is endorses hompobic policies and the Iraq War, using your logic Hillary Clinton is a homophobe since she endorsed the Iraq War.
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p>Similarly her husband Bill endorsed the homphobic Dont Ask Dont Tell policy and again by being married to him she is a homophobe by association.
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p>I was merely pointing out that your logic is flawed, that Obama is not a homophobe, read his books, listen to his gay endorsers, the fact that he appeared on stage with McClurkan BEFORE McClurkin gave anti-gay statements is irrelevant to his candidacy.
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p>Yes it was amateur hour at the Obama campaign but those are not the policies he will implement as President, unlike Hillary Clinton who would sellout the gays to gain a few points in the polls.
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p>And also you failed to address my point. What electable Democrat is there with a better position on gay rights? Thats right the answer is none since outside of blue states nobody gives a damn about gay rights.