Winfrey sparks presidency buzz
UNITED STATES: Oprah Winfrey’s odds of becoming the next US president were slashed dramatically yesterday after an electrifying Golden Globe Awards speech and reports that she is considering a run.
The 63-year-old talk show host drew repeated standing ovations from Hollywood stars in an emotional speech that tackled the industry’s sexual harassment scandal head on.
Winfrey, herself the victim of childhood sexual abuse, delivered a nine-minute monologue that ended with her envisioning a ‘‘new day’’ where people will no longer be sexually harassed.
Speculation that the speech could mark the start of a bid for the 2020 presidency went into overdrive when friends suggested she was considering a campaign.
Stedman Graham, Winfrey’s partner, said it was ‘‘up to the people’’ but ‘‘she would absolutely do it’’.
The suggestion dominated US news broadcasters yesterday as commentators considered the possibility of a race between Winfrey and US President Donald Trump for the White House in 2020.
It would pit two of the country’s best known television stars against each other – and, in the eyes of critics, complete the blurring of the line between politics and entertainment in America.
Winfrey is a prominent supporter of the Democratic Party, having campaigned for Barack Obama and endorsed Hillary Clinton in previous presidential races.
She rose to fame through The Oprah Winfrey Show, a talk show where her emotive interviewing style often elicited confessions from celebrity guests. As a child, she was repeatedly sexually abused by family members, and considered suicide – something she later spoke about publicly.
Receiving the Cecil B DeMille award at the Golden Globes ceremony on Monday, Winfrey used her acceptance speech to praise the ‘‘me too’’ campaign that called out sexual harassment.
‘‘I want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue,’’ she said.
‘‘They’re the women whose names we’ll never know. They are domestic workers and farm workers. They are working in factories and they work in restaurants, and they’re in academia, engineering, medicine and science.’’
Winfrey concluded by saying that ‘‘even during our darkest nights’’ it was possible to ‘‘maintain hope for a brighter morning’’.
She finished: ‘‘So I want all the girls watching here, now, to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be ... a time when nobody ever has to say ‘me too’ again.’’
The speech, far more political than the average awards acceptance speech, did not mention Trump but included a defence of the media.
It triggered a wave of calls on social media for Winfrey to run for the White House, and saw her odds of being the next president slashed. Irish bookmaker Paddy Power put her at 10/1 to win the
2020 election – equal to Joe Biden, the former US vice-president – while Ladbrokes cut its odds to
33/1.
While some Democrats would embrace Winfrey’s outsider celebrity status as the party’s answer to Trump, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi noted that Winfrey, like Trump, lacks any kind of experience in government.