“For too long, women have not be een heard or believed if they dare speak the tru uth...”
OPRAH WINFREY, American media proprietor
NEW YORK: Could OOprah Winfrey run for pressident and beat Donald Truump? The United States wass ablaze on Monday with sppeculation that the billionairee talk-show queen might bee nurturing White House ambitions after an immpassioned Golden Globes speech.
Winfrey had barelly heralded a “new day” foollowing a sexualh arras sm ent watershed, before calls snowballled for one of America’s most famous women, a self-made tycoon born into poverty, to run for the highest office in the free world.w
Hollywood’s loathing of TrumpT and Democrats’ bafflement thhat a crasstalking reality star with non previous government experience could win the presidency have fueelled talk of, well, why not anotherr television star, only one with the “right” politics?
Twitter ignited, DDemocrats championed her as ssuperior to Trump and even RRepublicans admitted she was a formidable opponent to a reeality star president, who himmself named Winfrey as his picck for vicepresident in an interview 20 years ago.
The White Housee even wad- ed in, saying Trump would “welcome the challenge, whether it be Winfrey or anybody else”, when a spokesman was grilled aboard Air Force One.
The only fly in the ointment? Winfrey’s denial.
“I don’t, I don’t,” she reportedly said backstage at the Globes when asked if she planned to run.
“There’ll be no running for office of any kind for me,” she told CBS in October.
But fevered speculation only escalated.
“Oprah for president? She’s got my vote,” tweeted pop superstar Lady Gaga.
CNN quoted two anonymous “close friends” as saying Winfrey was “actively thinking” about a presidential run.
If the speculation is wishful thinking, Winfrey’s fame and wealth, extraordinary personal story overcoming poverty, child sexual abuse and pregnancy to build a US$2.8 billion (RM11 billion) fortune and Oscarnominated acting career, would stack up nicely in her favour.
“I slept on it and came to the conclusion that the Oprah thing isn’t that crazy,” tweeted Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, the president Winfrey was credited with helping to elect in 2008.
Bill O’Reilly, a Trump supporter and ex-Fox News anchor disgraced by sexual harassment allegations, wrote: “How can any politician attack Oprah, a feminine icon, human rights hero, civil rights champion and beloved human being?”
A March 2017 poll by Quinnipiac University gave Winfrey a 52 per cent favourable rating compared with Trump’s then 41 per cent job approval rating.
Despite Winfrey’s denials, she tweeted in September a New York Post editorial that trumpeted her as the Democrats’ best hope of beating Trump in 2020 with the message: “Thanks for your VOTE of confidence!”
At the start of the Golden Globes on Sunday, host Seth Meyers playfully encouraged her to run against Trump.
Becoming the first black woman to accept the Cecil B. De Mille lifetime achievement award, her speech wove together gender, poverty and race.
“For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to the power of those men,” she said to a standing ovation.
“So, I want all the girls watching here now to know that a new day is on the horizon.”
But there was also angst at the idea of electing another television star with zero government experience as commander-in-chief in charge of the nuclear codes.
“Oprah, Don’t Do It” advised a New York Times editorial, calling it a “terrible idea” that would show how far celebrity and ratings have repudiated experience and expertise.
But Republican strategist Rick Wilson suggested Trump’s election, once unthinkable, had rewritten the rules.
“There may be an equation here where the only thing that can beat a celebrity is another celebrity.” AFP