Agence France Presse
COLUMBIA, South Carolina - Talk show host and pop culture kingmaker Oprah Winfrey campaigned Sunday for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, helping pull in a vast crowd for the largest campaign rally of the primary season so far.
Almost 30,000 predominantly African-American fans of Winfrey and Obama streamed into the 80,000-seat University of South Carolina football stadium to catch a glimpse of their heroes.
"Dr. (Martin Luther) King dreamed the dream, but we don't have to just dream the dream any more," Oprah told the crowd that met her with a standing ovation. "We get to vote that dream into reality by supporting a man who knows not just who we are, but who we can be."
Obama "speaks to the potential inside of every one of us," she said.
Winfrey emphasized that this weekend was the first time she ever campaigned for a political candidate.
The power of Winfrey's endorsement is unclear, but she has a track record of turning unknown authors into blockbuster best-sellers when their books are mentioned on her program.
Her Obama-backing road show comes just as polls show him closing in on front-runner Hillary Clinton's lead, and even surpassing her in some early voting states.
A McClatchy/MSNBC poll published Sunday showed Clinton leading Obama 28 percent to 25 percent in South Carolina, with third-place John Edwards earning 18 percent.
Democrats vote in the state on January 23.
Winfrey is on a three-state tour for Obama, but in South Carolina, where 50 percent of the Democratic voters are African-American, her backing is seen as especially important.
Before Oprah and Obama took the stage, a representative from the Guinness Book of World Records certified a new "mass participation" record in the category of the "world's largest phone bank," as attendees called more than 35,000 potential Obama voters on their cell phones within 10 minutes.
Michelle Obama, the candidate's wife, introduced Oprah as "the first lady of television." The billionaire talk show host took the stage to deafening cheers and to the tune of Aretha Franklin's soulful single "Think."
In her speech she urged voters to back Obama's "new vision" for the United States, then brought the candidate on stage chanting: "It's Obama time!"
The loudest, longest cheers were reserved for Obama.
"One of the reason we've seen such interest in this campaign is because a year from now you will be selecting the next president of the United States and the name (President) George W. Bush will not be on the ballot," he said to a roar or approval.
Obama promised to provide affordable healthcare for every American during his first administration and to get US soldiers out of Iraq within 16 months of taking office.
Winfrey's star power forced the campaign to switch the rally from a ticket-only event at an 18,000 seat basketball arena to the massive football stadium.
Winfrey, 53, viewed as one of the world's most influential entertainers, is said to be the second-most admired woman in the United States -- behind former first lady Clinton, according to a recent Gallup Poll.
Winfrey's afternoon television chat show attracts up to 10 million viewers, mostly women, every day. Obama hopes these viewers will help him outpace Clinton, the first woman ever with a realistic chance of winning the White House.
In her speech, Winfrey said Obama's stance as a candidate of change was more important than the perceived lack of political experience for which opponents such as Clinton criticize him.
"Experience in the hallways of government isn't as important to me as the experience on the pathway of life," Winfrey said, citing the first-term Illinois senator's achievements outside Washington.
While Winfrey's popularity might have drawn crowds, some seem more interested in her than in presidential politics. After she spoke Saturday in Iowa, hundreds left, missing all or part of Obama's speech.
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