Campaign Appearances
In the fall of 2007, Obama was considered a long shot, an absolute outsider in the race for the Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States and was still considered unlikely to win the Iowa caucus, and polls showed him losing the black vote to Clinton. In late November 2007, the Obama campaign announced that Winfrey would be campaigning for Obama for a series of rallies in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Even before Winfrey appeared thousands of Iowans flocked to Obama’s campaign offices office, and 1,385 signed up as volunteers to score tickets to see Winfrey’s Iowa appearance. The Columbia, South Carolina event on December 9, 2007 drew a crowd of nearly 30,000, the largest for any political event of 2007.
Newsweek’s Howard Fineman reviewed Winfrey’s speech in South Carolina:
| “ | Oprah riffed her way through an eloquent paean to the need for a change of leadership in America. "Dr. King talked about the dream," she said. "Now we get to vote that dream into reality. You gotta step out of your box!" she said. "We can dream America anew!"...She is astonishing, truly. The woman was on her maiden campaign trail voyage, and yet already she was better—more cogent, more effective, more convincing—than anyone out there. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Oprah Winfrey's Endorsement Of Barack Obama
Famous quotes containing the words campaign and/or appearances:
“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.”
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“The appearances of goodness and merit often meet with a greater reward from the world than goodness and merit themselves.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)