Oprah Winfrey Speaks

Oprah Winfrey yesterday brought her considerable celebrity buzz out on the campaign trail and hit hard at African Americans, even bringing back the late Rev. Martin Luther King at one point.

"Dr. King dreamed a dream. But we don't have to just dream the dream anymore," Ms. Winfrey said. "We get to vote that dream into reality."In her 17-minute speech in front of about 30,000 people at the University of South Carolina's football stadium, Ms. Winfrey also blasted critics who have said that Sen. Barack Obama does not have enough experience.


"There are those who say it's not his time, that he should wait his turn," she said. "Think about where you'd be in your life if you'd waited when people told you to."Referring to the state's Democratic primary date, she said, "South Carolina — January 26th is your moment." She capped off her three-state tour last night at a stop in Manchester, New Hampshire.According to the Los Angeles Times, the rally in South Carolina was the biggest one ever for Sen. Obama's presidential bid. They also appealed directly to the mostly black crowd, peppering their speeches with "y'all" and "you folks.

" They made several references to church attendance, beauty parlors and God, quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and played up Ms. Winfrey's Southern roots and that fact that Mrs. Obama's family came out of South Carolina.A McClatchy-MSNBC poll released yesterday has the liberal Illinois Democrat in a statistical tie for the lead with Sen. Hillary Clinton in South Carolina. The liberal New York Democrat had 28% and Sen. Obama 25% among likely Democratic primary voters, which is within the poll's margin of error.


A key factor has been a swing to Sen. Obama among black voters - who comprise half of South Carolina's Democrats - whom the poll showed support Sen. Obama 37% versus 21% for Sen. Clinton.However, a recent poll of black South Carolinians conducted for Winthrop University and South Carolina's public TV and radio network found that 35% intended to vote for Sen. Obama, 31% for Sen. Clinton and 3% for Sen. John Edwards (who was born in South Carolina). The poll was noteworthy for the 33% of black women who said they were undecided.

Hatip to Bookerising for this latest post