A long time ago I predicted Barack Obama would win the Democratic presidential nomination. Much has happened since then, and his star has lost some luster, however, I am standing by my prediction. Hillary's stability is beginning to erode, also as I figured.
I will not repeat my reasons for why Obama will get the nomination, they remain the same. I will only accent the very slighting reference I made to Obama's connection with Oprah Winfrey as being a major advantage for him. Oprah is now starting to assert herself in this race. She is turning up the pro-Obama volume and will use her wildly popular television show to promote him.
Hollywood and the TV media have been pro-Democrat as long as I can remember, but never before do I remember someone with the cultural power of Oprah Winfrey poised and ready to use her pulpit (the most-watched daytime talk show) to advance a political candidate's cause.
Oprah's popularity is a testament to the degraded state of thinking and dialogue in our country. She epitomizes temporal, relativistic, feel-good, humanistic philosophy. The sheer number of her viewers, who are mostly women, indicates the anemic state of affairs in our nation's mindest. The amount of Christian women who watch Oprah Winfrey regularly manifests a serious spiritual discernment deficit as well. Now, she stands poised to rally her church (Joel Osteen has nothing on Oprah's following) to place their support behind her anointed man- Barack Obama. Even Neil Postman, were he alive, would have to be surprised with how right his analysis was in "Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in an Age of Show Business".
You doubt Oprah's power? Ask yourself this- If Oprah decided to promote Mike Huckabee instead, do you think it would matter? You better believe it would. Obviously this would never happen, Oprah is far too socially liberal to do so. How about Giuliani? Much more plausible. Surely Oprah can have an influence, a major influence, on this race. Hillary has to be squirming big time. Frankly, it's only just begun. If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, it will be very tough for any Republican Candidate to counter the kind of airtime and hearing Oprah will give Obama. Do the Republicans think "The View" will help them? How about Ellen?
The last two elections brought out the liberal media and all the Hollywood stars to oppose George Bush. Watching TV and listening to the various celebs sure made it seem like Bush would get destroyed. In that light, I don't usually gauge actual public opinion on what the media portrays, after all, they were wrong the last two elections. This time, I think it's different. Our culture is further degraded and Oprah wasn't as involved in those elections. In light of the state of public discourse and the overall national mindset, her influence just might tip the scales.
The Oprah Factor is about to show itself, just watch.
5 comments:
While I do not deny its all about the O for O factor, Osama I mean Obama will not win the nomination of the Pinko Commie Humanistic Socialist Tax & Spend Abortionist Gay Rights Al Qaeda Democrats. Queen Hillary may be slipping in the polls, but do you think Don Clintone and the Clintonistas will allow a not even one term Senator from Hillary’s birthplace to upstage Bill’s return to the monarchy? This election for that side of the aisle will be the same as when the Hollywood and the media rallied behind Howard Dean in 2004, Bradley in 2000, Jerry Brown in 1992, Jesse Jackson in 1988 and in 1984, and Ted Kennedy in 1980. Notice a pattern here?
The reality of the presidential election is very simple it is the acrostic EMILY, Early Money Is Like Yeast. The Clinton machine is far too organized to hand it over to the Big O. The only way to stop them is to unite behind the GOP nominee, even if I have to eat crow and vote for Romney or Giuliani, it will be far better than another 8 years of Clinton INC.
The media needs a horse race to gather ratings, that is why the numbers are what they are, but remember in 1992 Clinton was not the media darling, they actually reported his peccadilloes and illegal finance Whitewater scheming to boost Jerry Brown and the late Paul Tsongas.
Conversely, that is also, why some candidates who would have made an excellent president, or at least maintain the power of their convictions such as Dan Quayle or Pat Buchanan never got the party nomination.
In the words of a man who had he been in elected in 1964 may have changed the outcome of Vietnam, the late Senator Berry Goldwater said, “Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” I hope many of us conservatives remember that sometimes drifting to a weak third party candidate is only going to seal the deal for the Clintonistas. It is bad enough the Red Sox won the World Series; do we really want the Anti-Christ to be our next President?
Good points Rick, good points. Believe me, I hope I'm wrong on this.
Hey Tony- can you elaborate on how Postman's argument in "Amusing Ourselves to Death" speaks to the phenomenon you're talking about? I don't see any connection (other than you both talk about television).
Sure thing Aaron-
Postman postulated that Television became the new mode of public discourse, rather than the written and spoken word. In this light, Television has radically lowered the level of discourse we have and offers a skewed view of reality. Oprah is seen as some kind of intellectual by many TV watchers, hence showing how far we have fallen with TV as the new mode of discourse. Postman, I think, would be amazed to see how such a trivial show will likely have such a profound effect on the history of the world (potentially the choice of a president). Here's a snippet from Chapter 5 of Postman's work, it gives more of the idea (keep in mind, Postman's book was written 20 years ago!)-
Television has become, so to speak, the background radiation of the social and intellectual universe, the all-but-imperceptible residue of the electronic big bang of a century past, so familiar and so thoroughly integrated with American culture that we no longer hear its faint hissing in the background or see the flickering grey light. This, in turn, means that its epistemology goes largely unnoticed. And the peek-a-boo world it has constructed around us no longer seems even strange.
There is no more disturbing consequence of the electronic and graphic revolution than this: that the world as given to us through television seems natural, not bizarre. For the loss of the sense of the strange is a sign of adjustment, and the extent to which we have adjusted is a measure of the extent to which we have changed. Our culture's adjustment to the epistemology of television is by now almost complete; we have so thoroughly accepted its definitions of truth, knowledge and reality that irrelevance seems to us to be filled with import, and incoherence seems eminently sane.
It is my object in the rest of this book to make the epistemology of television visible again. I will try to demonstrate by concrete example ... that television's conversations promote incoherence and triviality ... and that television speaks in only one persistent voice — the voice of entertainment. Beyond that, I will try to demonstrate that to enter the great television conversation, one American cultural institution after another is learning to speak its terms. Television, in other words, is transforming our culture into one vast arena for show business. It is entirely possible, of course, that in the end we shall find that delightful, and decide we like it just fine. This is exactly what Aldous Huxley feared was coming, fifty years ago.
I still say, we haven't begun to smell all the nasty and decaying skeletons yet to be revealed in Hillary’s contaminated closet. With all the scary power that vomits forth from the Clinton's house, many folks who may hold the goods on the Clinton’s will never come clean. Lord help us if she should win! I have remember His Supremacy and He is Lordship has the ultimate control over everything…. even who is elected president.
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