CHICAGO \u2014 When a mysterious 15-minute gap appeared in the Democratic National Convention\u2019s Wednesday night programming, a rumor \u2014 quickly confirmed \u2014 began circulating that the surprise speaker would be none other than Oprah Winfrey.<\/p>\n
And when the mononymous daughter of Chicago, her chosen hometown, took the stage in the United Center here \u2014 beaming off the Jumbotron in her vivid lilac pantsuit \u2014 she was greeted with an immediate roar and standing ovation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho says you can\u2019t go home again?\u201d the talk-show queen broadcast from the house of the Bulls.<\/p>\n
In ways both literal and figurative, Winfrey\u2019s Wednesday night speech was indeed a homecoming in which she fulsomely returned to the political arena 16 years after her debut political endorsement of Barack Obama to once again bestow the full force of her celebrity and cultural power, this time on Vice President Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n
Describing herself as a political independent who always votes her values, Winfrey offered a largely apolitical speech, instead serving as yet another voice at the United Center calling for joy and decency, and emphasizing \u201ccommon sense over nonsense.\u201d (Even her head-to-toe choice of color \u2014 purple \u2014 offered the simultaneous promise of bipartisanship and nonpartisanship).<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m calling on all you independents and all you undecideds,\u201d Winfrey said, imploring would-be voters far outside the convention perimeter to support Harris. \u201cYou know I\u2019m telling you the truth that values and character matter, most of all, in leadership and in life, and more than anything \u2014 you know, this is true \u2014 that decency and respect are on the ballot in 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCommon sense tells you that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can give us decency and respect,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n
Winfrey, who over her career has been dubbed the most influential and powerful woman in the world by everyone from CNN to Forbes to Time, has long embodied the so-called \u201cOprah effect\u201d \u2014 the ability to influence public opinion, say, or send book sales skyrocketing with almost a single utterance.<\/p>\n
But her first foray into electoral politics did not come until 2007, when she pointedly chose her fellow Chicagoan over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary for president.<\/p>\n
Calling him \u201cthe one,\u201d Winfrey hosted fundraisers for and appeared at rallies with Obama in early primary states, emerging as one of his most potent and important supporters. Moments after Obama accepted the Democratic nomination in 2008 at Denver\u2019s Invesco Field, Winfrey described his speech as \u201cthe most powerful thing I have ever experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI cried my eyelashes off,\u201d she said at the time.<\/p>\n
Since then, Winfrey has continued to periodically weigh in on certain races \u2014 she supported Clinton in 2016, for instance. But no subsequent endorsement has quite matched the shimmering synergy of the merging of Obama and Winfrey, two charismatic Black leaders marshaling complementary cultural movements.<\/p>\n
Yet Wednesday night offered something of a symbolic and almost physical torch-passing, with Winfrey \u2014 American royalty and Chicago uber-royalty \u2014 serving as the bridge between the Obamas, who both spoke Tuesday evening, and Harris, who will officially accept her party\u2019s nomination Thursday night at the United Center.<\/p>\n
There were signs that Winfrey viewed Harris\u2019s historic ascent as similar to that of Obama, including when she told People magazine just days after Joe Biden and Harris were officially declared the winners of the 2020 presidential race that she wished Black poet, writer and activist Maya Angelou had been alive to see it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what she means for women of the world is so extraordinary,\u201d Winfrey told the magazine at the time. \u201cFor women here in the United States, we can\u2019t even measure it. Because to see someone who looks like you in this role, you see what\u2019s possible for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Popping back into the political fray Wednesday in support of Harris, Winfrey served as yet another strong Black woman who delivered yet another powerful speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd let us choose the sweet promise of tomorrow over the bitter return to yesterday,\u201d she said, before turning to what has emerged as a signature line of Harris\u2019s: \u201cWe won\u2019t go back. We won\u2019t be set back, pushed back, bullied back, kicked back. We\u2019re not going back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winfrey never uttered the names of the men atop the Republican ticket \u2014 former president Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio \u2014 and even her pointed digs were loosely couched in the idea of appealing to the nation\u2019s common decency.<\/p>\n
She described at times being on \u201cthe receiving end\u201d of \u201cracism and sexism and income inequality and division,\u201d before saying, \u201cbut more often than not, what I\u2019ve witnessed and experienced are human beings, both conservative and liberal, who may not agree with each other, but who still help you in a heartbeat if you are in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
She continued: \u201cWhen a house is on fire, we don\u2019t ask about the homeowner\u2019s race or religion. We don\u2019t wonder who their partner is or how they voted. No. We just try to do the best we can to save them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, pausing, Winfrey finished the riff by alluding to comments Vance made in 2021 on Fox News about \u201ca bunch of childless cat ladies\u201d who are miserable in their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out, too,\u201d she concluded, as the crowd cheered.<\/p>\n
Winfrey\u2019s prime-time performance was the sort of speech \u2014 not unlike her remarks at the 2018 Golden Globes, when she received the Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement \u2014 that seem likely to prompt a swirl of speculation about her own political ambitions.<\/p>\n
But as if to clear up any doubt, Winfrey ended her remarks by calling on the crowd to choose honor and joy. Then, throwing her arms open wide, she sang Harris\u2019s name in a throaty vibrato: \u201cAnd together, let\u2019s all choose Kamala HAR-RIS!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
CHICAGO \u2014 When a mysterious 15-minute gap appeared in the Democratic National Convention\u2019s Wednesday night programming, a rumor \u2014 quickly confirmed \u2014 began circulating that the surprise speaker would be none other than Oprah Winfrey. And when the mononymous daughter of Chicago, her chosen hometown, took the stage in the United Center here \u2014 beaming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}