Oh, snap.

I've been saying that a lot lately, it seems. Here's why I'm saying it today:



As they say here on the internet... PWN3D!!11!!1
Check the smile right before he says it - perfect. He doesn't usually truck with these one liners and sound bites, which is why his debate performances are often forgettable, but this was a great zinger that remained perfectly polite while diffusing her rude little interruption and it was funny to boot. Well played, Barack. Well played indeed.

In related news - the Bill Shaheen, the Clinton campaign co-chair for NH who implied yesteday that Obama may have been a drug dealer in his past "resigned" today. Hillary privately apologized to Barack at Reagan National Airport and the campaign maintains that the Clinton campaign co-chair does not speak for Senator Clinton or her campaign campaign on this issue and the statement was not authorized or condoned. Meanwhile, some Clinton staffers got caught "sock-puppeting" at BlueHampshire. You stay classy, Clinton Campaign.

Oprahpalooza

Last night approximately 8,500 people arrived at the Verizon Wireless Center in Manchester, NH not for a concert or hockey game, but for a political event. They waited in lines that snaked on for blocks, waiting even longer once they made it inside. They stuck around the whole night and then drove home in a snowstorm. It was a Sunday evening, the weather was bad and the Pats were playing the Steelers but two of the biggest names in the country were in town – Oprah and Obama. After drawing crowds totaling almost 60,000 at 3 events in Iowa and South Carolina, the Oprahpalooza U.S. Tour ended with an event described as the "largest political event in recent New Hampshire memory."

Now, I’m sure renting out the largest indoor venue in New Hampshire doesn’t come cheaply, but it may have paid off for the Obama campaign. Thanks to the free media and boost in momentum gained not only by Oprah’s involvement, but also Obama’s surge in the polls, the campaign garnered a tremendous influx of support in the week leading up to the event. More than 650 new volunteers signed up to help and over 2,300 new New Hampshire supporters joined the campaign.

As tickets were snatched up rapidly and waiting lists were created, one of the big questions leading up to these events was “Are the audiences just going to see Oprah? Or are they actually there for Obama?” the answer, I think, was a little bit of both. Thanks to their quadrennial tradition of holding the nation’s first primary, voters in New Hampshire have a tremendous amount of access to the candidates, a fact of which they are very much aware. Most of the people I posed the “Oprah or Obama?” question to answered that they really wanted to hear Barack Obama speak, but it was the bonus prize of Ms. Oprah Winfrey that drew them out to that particular event on a snowy Sunday evening instead of the many other events that Senator Obama
will be having in their area before the January 8th primary. It was also apparent that some in the audience were people who were not typically involved in the political process, something the campaign was counting on. “This is an incredible opportunity for me to speak to thousands of New Hampshire voters who might not otherwise come out to a political event, and to energize the thousands of volunteers and supporters already working for change around the state,” Obama stated before the event.

Introduced by Michelle Obama, who is a powerful speaker herself, Oprah Winfrey spoke passionately and with the optimism and charm her fans expect. She explained why she had ventured outside of her “TV box” to publicly endorse a candidate for the first time, telling the audience that unlike other politicians she had encountered Senator Obama had “an ear for eloquence, and a tongue for the unvarnished truth” instead of the “veil of political rhetoric.”

When he finally took the stage, Senator Obama joked that you knew it was a good event because he was the 3rd best speaker on the stage, but he took full advantage of his large audience, speaking for close to 40 minutes. Though the hour grew late, the audience remained engaged and often interrupted with chants of “O-ba-ma!” as he presented a rousing version of his stump speech, with Oprah and his wife, Michelle cheering from behind him. He closed his speech dramatically, reminding his audience that the only reason he, his wife and Oprah were there was “because somebody somewhere stood up when it was risky, they stood up when it was hard, they stood up when it was unpopular” and he urged voters to do the same. “That’s what we need to do right now, we need to stand up for America, stand up for equality, stand up for justice, stand up for our children” he shouted over thunderous applause as the audience, in fact, stood.