Feel-good folly fuels talk of Oprah run
Why should policy count in picking the next president?
— Oprah’s longtime partner Steadman Graham, to The Los Angeles Times
And why the hell not? Why shouldn’t Oprah be president? Personally, I can’t think of a single objection.
Hey, she’s a bigger celebrity than Donald Trump. She’s a more successful woman than Hillary Clinton and has a more traditional experience as a black American than Barack Obama. And she did all this without a rich daddy, a powerful husband or an Ivy League education. The only way Oprah could be a stronger candidate would be if she’d served in the military. And if she had, she’d probably have Jim Mattis’ job by now.
And check out the polls: Last March a Quinnipiac poll found voters gave Oprah a 52-23 percent favorability rating. A theoretical headto-head match-up by Public Policy Polling around that same time had her beating President Trump 47-40 percent, and that was when The Donald’s approval rating was still above 40 percent.
Businessmen like her because she’s a billionaire ($3.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index). Stay-at-home moms love her because she talked to them on TV every day. Rich people like her because she’s a limousine liberal. Poor people because she used to ride with them on the bus.
Millions of Americans, particularly women and minority voters, identify with Oprah, the person. And since identity is, apparently, the only thing that matters in politics anymore, President Oprah is pretty much a lock.
If that’s how we’re going to do politics.
Because there is another way. It’s kind of an old-fashioned idea that’s been pretty much abandoned, but we could vote for people based on — I’m feeling silly even suggesting it — their actual policies.
Go ahead, laugh. But there was a time that didn’t sound so crazy.
It’s hard to remember, but way back in 2008, people had serious qualms about a guy who hadn’t served in the U.S. Senate long enough to find the men’s room becoming “Leader of the Free World.” It turned out voters didn’t care, and Obama — a candidate with literally zero political accomplishments — beat John McCain, a war hero who’d spent 20 years in the Senate.
Then came Donald Trump, a guy who’d never even voted in a presidential primary until his name was on the ballot, and the voters said, “What the heck?” and made him president, too.
Oh, sure, we could pick presidents based on things like their position on the $21 trillion in debt we’re piling up, or maybe on a plan to do something about nutjob regimes going nuke, or the crappy quality of public education ... but how would we get our “feels” (as the kids say) from that?
Sure, Barack Obama had no executive experience and no political accomplishments when he ran the first time, but man — didn’t it
feel great casting that ballot for the first African-American president? And a young, good-looking guy, too?
And then eight years later, when Trump appeared, how great did it feel to vote for a guy who hated the establishment as much as you did? Who would rather punch the politically-correct in the face than engage in some boring policy debate.
Policy? Results? Fixing entitlements or facing down North Korea? That’s no fun. In fact, figuring out who to vote for on that stuff feels a lot like work.
But what could possibly feel better than voting for a smart, successful African-American woman who gives away cars on TV? It’s like election Oxy!
What would Oprah Winfrey actually do as president? Who cares! Only haters ask questions like that. In modern American politics, what you would do just doesn’t matter. What matters is who you are.
And there is no bigger “who” in America than Oprah — aka “Madame President.”