Just fyi, Oprah's Praying For Obama
Montecito, Calif. - Talk show monolith Oprah Winfrey welcomed more than $3.4M in donations for Barack Obama at her 9/08 fund-raiser, a Gastby-like affair at her 42-acre estate here on Santa Barbara's pristine, pricey coast.
"I'm praying for this man," Winfrey told the 1,500 guests traipsing her various lawns with their $2,300 tickets. "Nobody can stand in the way of destiny. Nobody. The moment is now."
The billionaire Winfrey said she has kept politics at a distance most of her life, but with Obama, "This is the first time I have felt compelled to get engaged."
Obama returned the affection, telling the crowd, "I love Oprah just as much as you love Oprah!"
But the crowd's many African-American celebrities do not promise Obama a lock on elite black support. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on 09/14 will meet a smaller set of $1,000-per-ticket donors at the L.A. home of basketball legend Magic Johnson, who co-hosts the fundraiser with prominent music moguls Berry Gordy, Clarence Avant and Quincy Jones. Last March, a Clinton Hollywood event raised $2.6 million, doubling what Obama raised at his star-studded L.A. fundraiser in February.
Six hours before the Oprah lawn party, Obama spoke to more than 4,000 supporters on the lawns of Santa Barbara City College, where he acknowledged the gathering's smattering of hippies. "I didn't know there were hippies left. That's cool," said Obama, his stage framed by a perfect California backdrop of palm trees and a crystal blue Pacific.
Oprah's guests were bussed in from a Santa Barbara fairground so as not to clog the narrow, estate-filled roads of nearby Montecito, one of America's wealthiest zip codes. Sources said that guests included Hollywood old guard and new faces including Sydney Poitier and "Grey's Anatomy" star Ellen Pompeo, Cicely Tyson and funnyman Chris Rock plus R&B charmer Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, supermodel Cindy Crawford and Oscar-winning actor Forrest Whitaker.
A performance by Stevie Wonder closed out the four-hour Oprah-for-Obama event. Other music came from an all-brass quintet greeting donors as they entered the Winfrey estate's large wooden rear gate, which opened to them in a slow manner akin to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory entrance. [DAVID FINNIGAN]
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