The Oprah Factor

I know I'm a week late in posting about this, but better late then never. It's seems like as soon as one of the biggest names in american culture endorses a presidential candidate the the political world gets turned on it's head.  Oprah has been a staunch supporter of Barack Obama for quite some time, so when she came out last week in Iowa to stump on his behalf no one was surprised. While it's obvious Oprah brings some of her base demographic to the Obama campaign, that doesn't justify other campaigns calling her "reverse uncle tom" and "satan".  I equate this bickering to the "Rat Pack era" in Las Vegas in that if you shook any of the Rat Pack's hands there were certain things you just didn't do. With all the talk of campaign "transparency" in terms of donations, I think that same level of transparency should be carried onto the communications portion of campaigns as well, that way with all different forms of communications in the voting public's eye, none of these events will repeat. We all know that every election cycle campaign mudslinging occurs and on it's many levels it can and has broken many campaigns in the past and will continue to until candidate's and their staff understand the the best way to get elected is to focus on getting elected and the issues facing that community and not cutting at the knee's of a candidate in your same parties primary election.