With what Democrats have been through since the 2016 American presidential election, you can’t blame them for wanting to find someone who can defeat Donald Trump.
That someone, surprisingly, might be talk show host Oprah Winfrey.
Her electrifying speech at the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday night ignited plenty of wishful thinking about an Oprah candidacy.
It grew more than wishful after the awards, when Winfrey’s partner, Stedman Graham, told the Los Angeles Times that Winfrey would be willing to run if “the people” wanted her to do so.
But as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
#MeToo had Oprah show written all over
Winfrey might indeed be able to beat Mr Trump in 2020. She certainly will bring the same kind of buzz to the Democratic primary season that Trump brought to the Republican contest.
Even more than Mr Trump, she is a masterful communicator, thanks to her daily talk show, her Oprah Winfrey Network on cable television, her O Magazine, and her proselytising before private audiences during the speaking tours she has made in recent years.
For 25 years, she appeared Monday through Friday in homes across the US and around the world, possibly the only black American with whom some had regular contact, even if it was on a television screen.
The #MeToo movement, honoured by celebrities in black garb, was just the kind of topic Winfrey would have tackled if her daily program was still on the air.
"In my career, what I've always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave," Winfrey told the rapt audience.
“To say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere, and how we overcome.”
She went on: “I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who’ve withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights.”
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