Did Oprah ruin it for Obama?

I wondered that this evening after I heard a friend remark that Oprah had brought the wrong kind of attention to Obama’s campaign.  Too many people see Oprah as “Hollywood” or removed from the real world, and Obama should not have accepted her help on the campaign trail, according to my friend.  He was also concerned that Oprah turned Obama into “the Black candidate”, where before Barack had succeeded in defining himself simply as a candidate.  The concern is that far too many whites will recoil now from Barack because he’s identifying too closely with Oprah.

Election politics always turn my stomach.

Meanwhile, as of today’s writing, John Edwards leads in Iowa — without Oprah.