If Donald can do it, why not Winfrey?

WASHINGTON — Oprah 2020? There are no rules anymore on how to become president.

Donald Trump vaulted off a reality television show.

Barack Obama jumped on the list of White House hopefuls the instant he finished his soaring 2004 Democratic convention speech— while still a candidate for a Senate seat from Illinois.

What we know is that Oprah Winfrey’s uplifting, powerful speech at the Golden Globes triggered speculation about a Democratic presidential bid.

My analysis is that Democrats— especially women— heard Winfrey’s speech as an anthem that the Trump era need not be extended to a second term.

Winfrey met the moment in her aspirational 1,000word speech accepting the Cecil B. DeMille award where she covered everything from her own inspiring story to civil rights, to the need for a robust press to #MeToo. Is there something to this? Winfrey holds a unique perch in our nation. She is a cultural icon since her days when she crossed divides with her TV talk show— which started as “A. M. Chicago.”

“There is possibly no other person in America who commands the attention that she does,” Democratic consultant Minyon Moore told me Monday.

Moore boiled it down to an essential question. “Will she have the stomach for this level of fight?”

Even if Winfrey wasn’t thinking about the White House on Sunday morning, could the Golden Globes nonetheless have launched her on something that could be real?

No Democrat right now is a 2020 front- runner.

David Axelrod, the Democratic strategist who advised Obama from his Illinois U. S. Senate bid to the White House, noted that the one ofa- kind Winfrey has been able to cross lines in our society other people can’t.

“It’s hard for me to imagine her doing it,” Axelrod said. “She’s got one of the greatest brands in the world and one of the reasons she does is because she knows who she is and she has avoided things that would undermine that.”

Winfrey is used to being in control. A presidential campaign— a presidency — changes that.

“She has been the master of her universe for a very long time,” Axelrod said. “And once you run for president, you are surrendering that.”

Then there is the backlash to Trump, whose presidency is hobbled because he’s never served in government until the White House.

“I just don’t know if Trump will create an appetite for someone who has some experience in government,” Axelrod said.

It may matter. It may not. What’s important to Democrats?

“I would argue that we need someone who will motivate a huge coalition of Americans,” said Ben LaBolt, a Democratic consultant.

Said LaBolt, “She might not be a traditional candidate. “That really doesn’t matter anymore.”