Hello ,
The next US presidential election will be in November 2020. The campaign for it is now underway.
There is pressure on Oprah Winfrey to run as the Democrat candidate. The Democrat field is wide open. I doubt Mrs Clinton would try again. Former Vice President Joe Biden may be interested.
But Clinton and Biden have a similar problem: they are both professional politicians from the mainstream political class. American have voted three times in a row for people outside the mainstream political class: Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Trump in 2016.
Americans are sick of their political class. So are Australians but the Australian political system means that Australians cannot do much about it.
But Americans can. Anyone born in the US, aged 35 and over can run. And many do. The election is usually focussed on the two main parties but many others stand each year for other minor parties (and receive little media coverage).
Oprah Winfrey is not from the mainstream political class. That is a big plus. The political class are appalled – they prefer only their own members to be considered. (Unfortunately the political class has produced a number of duds over the years).
But very junior Senator Obama (ranked 99th out of 100 senators in terms of seniority) and businessperson Trump have shown that Americans now like people from outside the professional politicians.
Oprah (like Trump) has a high media profile (computer search engines recognize her first name immediately and so there is no need for a surname to be entered). She is very articulate and very successful.
She had a tough, poverty-stricken childhood. But she has become the US’s first billionaire person of colour. This would work well with the traditional poor Democrat voters who now vote Republican. Like Obama, she is proof that anyone can do well in America.
53 per cent of white women who voted, voted for Trump. Oprah would win many of those next time (as well as the people of colour votes, which went to Clinton).
A Trump-Oprah 2020 campaign would provide two contrasting views of America. First, Obama ran as the candidate of hope (“Yes we can”). Optimism is the heartbeat of America. This is part of the upbeat American culture which visitors find so invigorating. Americans have a “can do” attitude. Oprah would tap into that spirit of optimism.
But Trump ran on a campaign based on the other American characteristic: fear and paranoia (which also works well in Australia). He grossly exaggerated, for example, the risk of being killed by “Islamic terrorists”. (More Americans get killed by lawnmowers each year than by terrorists – and even more by toddlers with guns). But fear worked in 2016. The voters were made to feel scared and anxious (it always works in Australia as well).
An Oprah versus Trump campaign would bring these two contrasting sides of American culture right into the open.
Meanwhile Trump supporters (who are terrified of an Oprah candidacy) cannot complain that she has no experience of world affairs because Trump did not either.
Unlike the Australian political system (which has only a limited gene pool from whom a prime minister can find talent), the US system allows the president to appoint practically anyone to the government. A president can recruit the best and the brightest (if they choose to).
American politics will remain very interesting.
Keith Suter
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