Mark Halperin is skeptical of the influence of Oprah's tour dates with Barack Obama, positing that they'll be attention-getters, but not vote-getters:
So yes, expect loud, rousing rallies in all three early voting states when Oprah Winfrey comes to town with her friend Barack Obama in early December, with gobs of media attention, raucous crowds, emotion and great pictures. But don't expect those events to do anything productive to allow Obama to get over the biggest hurdle standing between him and the White House. American voters are not looking for a celebrity or talk show sidekick to lead them. Obama is an intelligent and thoughtful potential President, but Winfrey's imprimatur is unlikely to convey those traits to many undecided voters.
In that respect, Winfrey's events might even be -- dare it be said -- counterproductive.
Far more important, he writes, will be events like today's foreign policy forum in which he brought out some heavyweights to back his policy proposals and experience, including folks like Bill Clinton's former national security adviser, Tony Lake. It's true that the backing of leading foreign policy thinks is more important -- for the voters who pay close (or any) attention to the candidates' foreign policy plans. But I'm guessing the overlap between those voters and the Oprah crowd is pretty small. So the idea that Oprah's endorsement -- which is less likely to drive away the foreign policy fans than the minute details of his foreign policy proposals are to draw in the Oprah lovers -- is a bad thing is at best wishful thinking. Sure, we don't want to live in a country where a talk show host has more sway than the former national security adviser, but that doesn't make it so.
--Kate Sheppard
