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What Oprah and Hillary Have in Common—and What They Do Not

When he was campaigning for president in 1992, Bill Clinton had a stock line in his stump speech:

My wife, Hillary, gave me a book that says, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

Speaking at a rally for Barack Obama on Saturday, Oprah Winfrey declared,

If we continued to do the same things over and over and over again, I know that you get the same results.

In 1992, Bill Clinton was selling himself as the candidate of change. This time around, Obama is trying to corner that market, with Hillary Clinton promising the best of both worlds: change and experience. In an auditorium filled with signs proclaiming, "Chage You Can Believe In" (get the dig at Hillary?), Winfrey pronounced Obama the genuine agent of change and not-too-indirectly slammed Hillary Clinton:

I challenge you to see through those people who try and convince you that experience with politics as usual is more valuable than wisdom won from years of serving people outside the walls of Washington, D.C.

In other words, don't buy Clinton's most powerful argument. While pitching Obama, Winfrey is unselling Clinton. And the Clinton people certainly are not going to do what politicos usually do in such a circumstance: attack the messenger. After all, who wants to get into a tussle with Oprah? The question, of course, is, will Winfrey, who is campaigning with Obama in several early states, really help Obama? No one will know until January 3. But certainly none of this is likely to hurt the candidate of more change.

Posted by David Corn on 12/10/07 at 5:48 AM | Comments (4) | Email | Print

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