On Sunday night at the Golden Globe awards in Beverly Hills, Oprah Winfrey accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award and delivered what many considered an inspiring speech. Since then, the center-left media have been abuzz with talk of a Winfrey presidential run in 2020. Gayle King, a friend of the sometime talk show host and current media tycoon, reports that Winfrey is “intrigued” by the idea; Democratic poohbahs express guarded interest; and Donald Trump thought the prospect of a Winfrey candidacy sufficiently important to address directly. “Yeah,” the president said in a meeting with members of Congress, “I’ll beat Oprah.”
Having lived through 2016, we are not inclined to say whether Oprah Winfrey or anybody else has or doesn’t have a shot at the presidency. Nowadays, alas, anything’s possible. If she wants it badly enough, she could win.
Add Oprah (it’s impossible not to call her by her first name) to the list of celebrities rumored to be running for high-level political office: Kanye West, Kid Rock, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. But Oprah is very far indeed from the stereotypical empty-headed celebrity; she is far brighter and variously proficient than, for instance, George Clooney or Cher. Oprah runs a multi-billion-dollar media empire and has managed to stay in the public eye, scandal free, for more than 30 years. If she wants to be considered, Democrats would be wise to listen.
What about the content of Oprah’s speech? It was an expression of pride and gratitude, and gracefully executed. She thanked her friends and colleagues and praised the news media for “uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice.” Most of all, she expressed pride in “all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault.” “For too long,” said Oprah, “women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up.”
To which Hollywood’s glamourati stood and cheered and wept in emotional transport. It was a little galling to know that some of those cheering had known about Harvey Weinstein’s cruel and brutal behavior for years and said nothing, but it was a poignant moment. Democrats would be wise to remember, even so, that the ability to stir an assemblage of uber-wealthy west-coast left-wingers does not infallibly indicate any special capacity to win over a nationwide coalition of voters.
Whatever one thinks of Oprah’s potential for high office, it’s surely regrettable that the criterion of political experience for the highest office now seems so quaint. Experience can be overvalued, to be sure: The fact that so-and-so has been a city councilor and a state senator and a governor and a U.S. senator does not mean he’d be a fine president. It may just mean he’s spent too much time in the public sector and might try holding down a real job for a while. And our Framers were right to be concerned about a permanent political class. “Representatives ought to return home and mix with the people,” said Connecticut’s Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. “By remaining at the seat of government, they would acquire the habits of the place, which might differ from those of their constituents.”
But if America is entering an era of celebrity presidents, we’re against it. Barack Obama was the first: On the strength of a single speech, a talented autobiographer and unaccomplished law professor with no executive experience elevated himself from the Illinois statehouse to the U.S. Senate for the sole purpose of mounting a presidential run. And just like that, he was president. (Quick, name one thing Obama did in the Senate.) After that, we elected a real estate tycoon and TV entertainer who had never worked in government at all and who didn’t even pretend to understand what the job was about.
Before the Democrats fixate on yet another celebrity—or at any rate on another personality famous for reasons wholly divorced from political leadership—we hope they’ll consider the possibility that the president of the United States should have some idea of what she’s doing when she gets there. Or he.
Republicans, we hope against hope, have already learned that lesson.
