The poll found that just 1 percent said they might be swayed by the involvement of Oprah Winfrey, who has been campaigning for Mr. Obama in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire the last three days, drawing huge crowds and allowing his campaign to identify new supporters.

Of course only 1 percent said they might be swayed. Who admits to making their political decisions based on Oprah‘s guidance? Her power here is exposure, headlines, name recognition, and the more subtle influences of power and fame. And she’s certainly getting him that. Their sold out appearances and the efficacy of her endorsement have been much-discussed in the news media. So even if people don’t think she’s having an effect, the fact that it’s even being talked about helps Obama’s campaign.

Cross-posted on TAPPED.

Call it “contrast,” “attack,” or whatever you’d like, but it’s a sure sign that the battle for the Republican nomination will be an ugly, knock-down, drag-out fight, and this is just a preview.

Cross-posted on TAPPED.

There’s no way anyone could mistake Tancredo’s stance as anything but the racist, nationalist, anti-all-immigrants stance that it is. Guess we should be glad he’s only polling at around 1 percent, but as last week’s debate showed, the other Republicans have been “trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo” of late. Seems he’s set a new bar with this one.

Cross-posted on TAPPED.

La Politica will now be go by the significantly less poetic name Candidato USA.

Food and drink have been central to American campaigns since colonial days, said Nancy Beck Young, a historian at the University of Houston. In 1758, running for office in Virginia, George Washington dispensed rum, beer and cider to voters. Andrew Jackson, considered the father of the modern organized presidential campaign, held barbecues in 1828, and William McKinley spent his 1896 “front porch” campaign sampling dishes that voters brought to his home in Canton, Ohio.

Today, though, boozing up and barbecuing with your potential voters is frowned upon, sadly. So are extra pounds. Personally, I prefer candidates with meat on their bones (“Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous … “), but I can see the appeal of a candidate who at least makes an effort at a healthy lifestyle, while not needed to look like some sort of model.

Anyway, there’s today’s dose of campaign minutiae. Trivial as it may be, at least it reminds me that these people are human.