US election: Storm as Oprah says no to Palin interview
TV chat show queen and Obama supporter Winfrey rules out a TV interview with the Republican vice-presidential candidate

Oprah Winfrey, America's favourite daytime TV star, has refused to have Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a guest on her talk show.

Winfrey, a prominent supporter of Democratic nominee Barack Obama, has been facing pressure from conservative commentators and pundits who say that Palin would be a perfect interview for her female-heavy audience.

Such an appearance would be a huge coup for the John McCain campaign. Palin, the party's first female vice-presidential choice, is making a determined bid for women voters and frequently refers to herself as a 'hockey mom' who just happened to fall into politics.

But Winfrey, responding to rumours on conservative websites like the Drudge Report that her staff was divided on the issue, squashed the idea of an interview. 'When I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates,' she said in a statement.

Oprah Winfrey is “actively thinking” about running for president, two of her close friends told CNN Monday.

The two friends, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, talked in the wake of Winfrey’s extraordinary speech at the Golden Globes Sunday night, which spurred chatter about a 2020 run.

Some of Winfrey’s confidants have been privately urging her to run, the sources said.

One of the sources said these conversations date back several months. The person emphasized that Winfrey has not made up her mind about running.

A representative for Winfrey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Democratic race for president won’t officially begin until after the 2018 midterms, but many potential candidates are already jostling for position and making trips to Iowa.

“President Winfrey” was the talk of the entertainment world after Winfrey accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes. And the “Oprah for president?” possibility was a top story on morning TV.

The touchstone of her speech was the #MeToo movement. But her hopeful message – “A new day is on the horizon” – could have doubled as a campaign rallying cry.

Many liberal-leaning celebrities and viewers certainly heard it that way. And that may have been exactly what Winfrey wanted.

As some political strategists have pointed out in the past year, her fame and wealth could make her a formidable Democratic Party candidate. But insiders have their doubts too: Would Americans really choose a TV star as president twice in a row?

For now, it’s all just talk. But her fans demonstrated a lot of wishful thinking on Twitter and Facebook after her speech.

Although Winfrey has deflected questions about a presidential run in the past, she has also acknowledged that President Trump’s election upended assumptions about how to pursue political office.

After the speech, Winfrey’s longtime partner Stedman Graham was quoted saying a run is certainly a possibility.

“It’s up to the people,” Graham told a Los Angeles Times reporter. “She would absolutely do it.”

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http://www.newsexpressngr.com/news/48434-Oprah-Winfrey-mulls-running-for...

A piece of advice from Old Gus: Don't do it, Oprah. Becoming the "President of the free world" demands a sociopathy and psycopathy beyond belief, where the decision to kill innocent people is routine — even with a mostly hypocritical heavy heart.

But here's where the fairytale story starts to unravel. It really is a sign of how decrepit the American political system is when the parties are obliged to seek celebrities as their figureheads. It is a sign of how in such low esteem "professional" politicians from both parties are held by the public when the parties have to court a reality-TV-type candidate to represent them.

READ MORE: Oprah Winfrey Hints at Presidential Run and the Internet Has Some Feelings

Ironically, the Democrats and liberal media pundits have deprecated the Republicans for recruiting reality-TV star Donald Trump as their leader. Now, the Democrats are mulling the same formula by choosing Oprah Winfrey.

Admittedly, Oprah has a very different character and set of moral values from Trump. Her life work and charitable giving mark her out as a genuine humanitarian with natural leftwing social sensibilities for justice and equality.

But putting faith in Oprah to transform American society into something more "progressive" and humane is such a pitiful delusion.

It really is a touchstone of how degenerate US politics have become when so many people might even contemplate that one benign individual could overturn a backlog of systemic problems, from gross wealth inequality to a culture of endless war-making around the globe.

Oprah's would-be campaign slogan "A new day on the horizon" sounds a lot like Obama's "hope and change". Or Trump's "America first". In the end, it's all soundbite and no substance. Much like an advertising jingle. Because American politics has become reduced to a commodified pursuit, like buying soap powder or a fast-food snack.

It is delusional for Americans to think that the many deep-seated problems in their nation can be solved by one individual, no matter how well-intentioned that individual might appear.

America's political problems are systemic in nature. They arise from the plutocratic nature of how its capitalist economy is run for the benefit of the elite few. Trump's recent $1.5 trillion tax giveaway for Wall Street and corporate America is a classic example.

So too is the relentless annual military spending — $1 trillion by some estimates — by the American government. A fraction of this allocation of taxpayer money would provide all Americans free education and healthcare if the government chose to. But Washington does not provide that humane option because it is dominated by the military-industrial complex, which again is dedicated to elite corporate interests, not those of the ordinary people.

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https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201801091060621485-oprah-winfrey-pres...

“I’ve always felt very secure and confident with myself in knowing what I could do and what I could not,” Winfrey told US magazine InStyle three weeks before the Globes. “And so it’s not something that interests me. I don’t have the DNA for it.”

At the awards show earlier this month, host Seth Meyers made a joke about Winfrey being president just before she delivered a rousing speech at the awards show.

A deluge of news stories and editorials followed, with commentators debating whether Winfrey would run for president and what such a bid would look like.

Donald Trump was even asked whether he could defeat Winfrey in a presidential election.

“Yeah, I’d beat Oprah,” Trump said. “Oprah would be a lot of fun. I know her very well. I like Oprah. I don’t think she’s gonna run.”

Winfrey’s friends, including best friend Gayle King, said Winfrey was likely not running for president. But her partner, Stedman Graham, fueled further speculation when the Los Angeles Times asked him whether Oprah would run.

“It’s up to the people,” Graham said. “She would absolutely do it.”

“Gayle – who knows me as well as I know myself, practically – has been calling me regularly and texting me things, like a woman in the airport saying, ‘When’s Oprah going to run?’ So Gayle sends me these things, and then she’ll go, ‘I know, I know, I know! It wouldn’t be good for you – it would be good for everyone else,’” Winfrey said.

“I met with someone the other day who said that they would help me with a campaign. That’s not for me.”

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jan/25/oprah-winfrey-presi...

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