Heralded by a mass of television and newspaper publicity the Oprah-Obama Show, starring Oprah Winfrey and B. Hussein Obama, came to South Carolina on Sunday with great expectations.
Buoyed by the news that tickets to the event, which was originally to be held in the 18,000 seat coliseum in Columbia, were being scooped up like white powder to a cocaine user, organizers decided to move the event to the massive Williams-Brice Stadium on the campus of the University of South Carolina.
The event was trumpeted by Obama supporters and Oprah groupies, with the help of the mainstream media which holds both Oprah and Obama in God-like reverence. Thus, the two personalities who are treated like rock stars decided to head to South Carolina where Democrats overwhelming support Mrs. Clinton.
Mrs. Clinton just received two weeks ago the endorsement of roughly two-dozen African-American clergymen in the state.
However, a brand new poll suggests that Mrs. Clinton may nonetheless have reason to begin to worry. Despite the endorsement of the clergymen, apparently there has been some movement in the polls, and it is not to Mrs. Clinton's favor.
The poll shows that support among African-Americans in the state is evenly split between Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama, despite the popularity of Bill Clinton among African-Americans. If this poll turns out to be accurate, this could effect the results of the January 26th primary in a state where 52% of Democrats are Black.
Nonetheless, today's Oprah-Obama Road Show did not live up to expectations. Despite the contention of organizers that they never expected to fill up Williams-Brice Stadium, it surely must have been a disappointment of sorts to have such a wildly popular TV star on the platform with only 30,000 in attendance.
30,000 in a stadium that seats 80,000 can put a damper on the most rational of expectations. Those empty 50,000 seats can totally engulf and devour such a crowd.
I am not so sure that the Obama people can claim this as a success. After all, this was essentially an Oprah event, and without her Obama would have been speaking to a small crowd in a classroom at the University of South Carolina.
Monday, December 10, 2007
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2 comments:
It is my belief that anyone that thinks they ever planned to be in the smaller venue is naive. They intentionally chose a location that would not hold enough people so that they could get even more free publicity and create even greater demand for the event by announcing that they had to move it to the larger stadium.
It was a stunt, pure and simple.
I am certain you are right.
Another thing to notice...AOL and other news sources headlined that 'Oprah and Obama drew HUGE crowds,' using the Williams-Brice Stadium thing as the example.
Bullshit. 30,000 in a stadium that seats 80,000 is no 'huge crowd.'
They didn't even half-way fill it up!
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