Obama: Oprah Says He Should Not 'Wait His Turn'

Katharine Q. Seelye writes:

The Double O Express — Oprah for Obama — drew what is easily the biggest crowd at a campaign event, for any candidate, so far this season. It may have helped that the day was unseasonably warm, above 70 degrees, and gorgeously sunny. But this size crowd is rare even for a general election in the fall. This event, which was moved to the University of South Carolina’s football stadium to accommodate everyone who wanted to come, drew mostly African-Americans and, it seemed, more women than men.

About half of the state’s Democratic primary voters are black, and more than half of them are women. So Oprah certainly seems to have reached the intended audience, one who will be pivotal to the primary.

And she knew her audience. From the moment she stepped on stage — to Aretha Franklin’s “Think” — she established a connection. Referring to her upbringing in Mississippi and Tennessee, she said: “I know something about growing up in the South and know about what it means to come from the South and be born in 1954.”

She did not spell out that 1954 was the year of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that desegregated the public schools, but it is a year with resonance in American racial history.

Nor did she explicitly acknowledge that she was addressing a largely black audience about a black candidate... “It’s just amazing grace that I get to stand here on this South Carolina stage to talk about the man who’s going to be the next president of the United States,” she said. Mr. Obama, she said, “speaks to the potential inside every one of us.”

Oprah noted that some say Mr. Obama should “wait his turn.” But, she said, “I wouldn’t be where I am if I waited on the people who told me it couldn’t be.” The audience erupted with applause.