Media mogul Oprah Winfrey, one of the few celebrities whose political endorsement actually meant something (see “the Oprah Effect” of 2008), is now toying with a presidential bid of her own.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg TV’s David Rubenstein, the businessman and big time philanthropist asked Winfrey, you know, one billionaire to another, what her plans were for 2020.
“Have you ever thought that, given the popularity you have — we haven’t broken the glass ceiling yet for women — that you could actually run for president and actually be elected?” asked Rubenstein.
The live audience, predictably, went a little nuts at the mere mention of Winfrey’s name in connection (even hypothetically) to the White House. For her part, Winfrey, who has been in the TV business for nearly 40 years, paused for dramatic effect.
“I never considered the question even a possibility,” she said, before adding, “I just thought, ‘Oh … oh?’”
Without mentioning President Trump’s name, Rubenstein then pointed out that “it’s clear you don’t need government experience to be elected president of the United States.”
“That’s what I thought,” Winfrey said. “I thought, ‘Oh gee, I don’t have the experience, I don’t know enough.’ And now I’m thinking, ‘Oh.’”
Could that be a possible campaign slogan in 2020? “Oh!” Stranger things have happened.
In the last presidential election Winfrey threw her considerable muscle behind former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president, after initially planning to stay out of politics for a while.
“Regardless of your politics, it’s a seminal moment for women. What this says is, there is no ceiling, that ceiling just went boom! It says anything is possible when you can be leader of the free world,” Winfrey told Entertainment Tonight in a June 2016 interview.
But as Rubenstein pointed out, that ceiling, though cracked, is still intact when it comes to the highest political office in the country.(WP)