America Letter:At 3pm today, 1,400 people will check in at a Santa Barbara showground, hand over $2,300 and pile into shuttle buses for an eight-mile ride to Oprah Winfrey's mansion for a Barack Obama fundraiser.
The guests won't be invited into the house - the invitation tells them to wear garden attire and comfortable shoes - and most will not even grab a handshake or a photograph with the two stars. The event sold out easily, adding more than $3 million to Obama's campaign funds and making it more likely than ever that he will outraise Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the third quarter of 2007 - just as he did in the first two.
However, Winfrey's support for Obama presents a deeper worry for the Clinton campaign because an active campaigning role for the talk-show queen could help Obama to eat into Clinton's huge lead among working-class women.
Clinton enjoys a comfortable lead over Obama in national polls, but they are running neck-and-neck in Iowa, which holds the first caucus to choose the Democratic candidate next year. Obama's fundraising success has ensured that he could capitalise on a victory in Iowa and remain competitive in the big states that will vote in early February.
African-Americans form a majority of Democratic primary voters in a number of key states and Clinton strategists have been hoping that her lead among women can counterbalance Obama's advantage among black voters.
Winfrey, whose reach is so powerful that her mention of a book on her daily show can turn obscure authors into millionaires overnight, could change all that if she joins Obama on the campaign.
Winfrey may hold back from a bigger campaigning role for business reasons, following the lead of basketball star Michael Jordan, who famously explained his reluctance to get involved in politics on the basis that "Republicans buy sneakers, too".
Despite his failure to break out of the mid-20s in national polls, Obama has proved to be a more resilient candidate than many pundits predicted, bouncing back from apparent mis-steps over foreign policy this summer to become more aggressive in distinguishing himself from Clinton.
In New Hampshire this week, he portrayed himself as an outsider whose down-to-earth background in community politics is sneered at by the Washington elite and hinted that Clinton would not represent a clean break with the Bush administration.
"As bad as this administration has been, it's going to take more than just a change in parties to truly turn this country around. George Bush and Dick Cheney may have turned divisive, special interest politics into an art form, but it was there before they got to Washington. If you and I don't stand up to challenge it, it will be there long after we leave," he said.
Clinton, who has made her experience a key selling point, this week introduced a new slogan, promising "change and experience".
"Change is just a word if you don't have the strength and experience to make it happen. I bring 35 years of experience to make the changes I think we need to make in America," she told union activists in Iowa this week.
It was all change this week on the Republican side, with senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson making his long-delayed entry into the presidential race. Thompson upset some people in New Hampshire by skipping a debate in the state to announce his candidacy on the Jay Leno Show and his first campaign event in Iowa attracted just 250 people. Thompson is running as a down the line conservative - anti-abortion, pro-gun and tough on national security - hoping to win over a right-wing Republican base that is uneasy with Rudy Giuliani's liberal stance on social issues and Mitt Romney's shifting positions. Giuliani has a clear lead in national polls, but Romney is ahead in early voting states. Neither candidate performed well in Wednesday's debate.
The clear winner that evening was John McCain, whose candidacy has widely been regarded as dead since he ran out of money and sacked most of his staff.
McCain was back on the straight-talking form he seemed to have lost when he was the Republican frontrunner, impressing viewers with direct answers to tough questions and a willingness to enunciate unpopular positions. He was his old self on the campaign too, faced with a high school kid who wanted to know if he was so old that he might die in office if elected president.
"Thanks for the question, you little jerk," replied the 71-year-old senator. "You're drafted."
