PRESIDENT WINFREY?
Speech fuels 2020 speculation
WINFREY DOWNPLAYS TALK OF PRESIDENTIAL RUN, BUT HER PARTNER SAYS SHE WOULD ‘DO IT’
Democratic Party operatives and some Republicans say that Oprah Winfrey could mount a formidable 2020 presidential campaign, after an impassioned speech at the Golden Globes on Sunday that was regarded as a rebuke of President Donald Trump.
Winfrey herself said afterward she’s not planning to run. And political strategists say that she so far has shown no sign of making the sorts of moves this year that would indicate serious interest in a 2020 campaign.
But her speech — combined with her considerable wealth, her personal popularity and her obvious contrasts with Trump — immediately stirred speculation. Discussing Hollywood’s sexual harassment scandal, Winfrey promised that “a new day is on the horizon” — a remark that some political wags immediately read as a future campaign slogan. If a billionaire former television reality show star can be elected president, why not a billionaire former talk show host who would also happen to be the first black woman to occupy the Oval Office?
“Oprah occupies a particular place in our culture that is deeply rooted in optimism and values. Her speech was a breath of fresh air in the middle of feeling like our country is drowning,” said Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA, a Democratic super-PAC.
Winfrey’s actual political ambitions are unclear. Asked backstage after her speech if she planned to run, Winfrey responded: “I don’t — I don’t.” Her longtime partner Stedman Graham, though, told the Los Angeles Times: “It’s up to the people. She would absolutely do it.”
And CNN reported Monday that two of Winfrey’s close friends said she is “actively thinking” about running and has had conversations about a race for several months.
Representative Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, tweeted on Monday: “Run, Oprah, run! An army of women would fight for you in #2020election #2020prah.”
A White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, told reporters aboard Air Force One that any Democratic challenger in 2020 will face an incumbent president with “record-setting achievements in record-setting time. We welcome the challenge whether it be Oprah Winfrey or anyone else.”
Winfrey, 63, said that Trump’s election changed her sense of her own viability for the office, in an interview that aired early last year with Bloomberg Television’s The David Rubenstein Show.
“I never considered the question even a possibility,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oh gee, I don’t have the experience, I don’t know enough.’ But now I’m thinking, ‘Oh. Oh.’ ”
Some Republicans think she’d be a challenge for Trump. Bill Kristol, the founder of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard and a Trump critic, tweeted on Monday that Winfrey is “sounder on economics than Bernie Sanders, understands Middle America better than Elizabeth Warren, less touchy-feely than Joe Biden, more pleasant than Andrew Cuomo, more charismatic than John Hickenlooper.”
Kristol added Hillary Clinton’s former campaign hashtag: #ImWithHer.
In September, after 60 Minutes aired a focus group discussion led by Winfrey about the political divides in Trump’s America, conservative columnist John Podhoretz wrote that she was “Democrats’ best hope for 2020.”
Winfrey responded to Podhoretz on Twitter: “Thanks for your VOTE of confidence.”
But the next month, she told best friend Gayle King during an interview on CBS This Morning that “there will be no running for office of any kind for me.”
Former Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer wrote on Twitter Monday that “I slept on it and came to the conclusion that the Oprah thing isn’t that crazy.” He also voiced a sentiment expressed by many others: “I don’t know if Oprah would be a good president, but she would definitely be a better president than Trump.”
Billionaire Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer, who’s also been mentioned as a potential 2020 candidate, praised Winfrey’s speech at a news conference in Washington on Monday where he announced he’d put $30 million toward boosting his party’s chances of winning the House this year.
The Democratic National Committee didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Winfrey is both wealthier and more popular than Trump. She is worth an estimated $3.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, compared to Trump’s $2.9 billion.
And while the president’s approval ratings generally hover below 40 per cent, 52 per cent of voters surveyed last year by Quinnipiac University said they viewed Winfrey favourably, compared with 23 per cent who viewed her unfavourably.
But those same voters overwhelmingly opposed a potential Winfrey presidential bid, with 69 per cent saying she should not run.
Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist who served as campaign manager for former Vermont Governor Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, said Winfrey would win the Democratic nomination thanks to her popularity, name recognition and resources.
One obstacle for Winfrey, however, could be that while she is quite different from Trump, she shares his lack of government experience. By 2020, Trippi said Americans might instead be looking for “somebody who knows how to make it all work.”