There's no doubt that Barack Obama scored a major media coup with the endorsement of Oprah Winfrey and their barnstorming tour of Iowa and today South Carolina.
Some people on these threads have raised the possibility that the Oprah star is shining so bright that it threatens to dim Obama's own star.
Certainly there is no case prior to Oprah's entry in the race in which 30,000 Iowans showed up to see Obama by himself.
I will never forget the closing moments of the 1988 campaign. There I was, a diehard Democratic precinct worker, pounding the pavements for Mike Dukakis in the one city in America that voted more than 80 percent for him.
Since it was one of the last places in America where Dukakis looked like a winner that late in the race, the campaign brought him to San Francisco's Chinatown with a big celebrity of the moment. Real big. Her name was Darryl Hannah. She was hot, and at the peak of her Mermaid hotness. She was also about three feet taller than Mike Dukakis.
When they strolled down the street surrounded by a small but cheering crowd, I couldn't help thinking of Mike in his snoopy hat in the Army tank. Here was Mike Dukakis, the future President of the United States, in the shadow of a gigantic blonde goddess. Talk about your backfiring celebrity appearances.
Oprah's appearance at the Obama rally seemed to me to be all about Oprah. Will the side effects others have noted -- an hour of free media watched by millions of potential new voters -- outweigh the fact that her awesome crowd-pulling power and the considerable baggage she brings with her may outweigh the obvious, immediate advantages.
In other words, does the big O make Obama look like an o?