Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [238]
Before the 2008 presidential election, Oprah was so determined to preserve her platform for Obama that when Bill Clinton returned to her show on September 4, 2007, to promote his second book, Giving, she made a point of telling viewers that he had called her himself, asking to appear. Months later the former president shrugged off Oprah’s lack of support for his wife. “Oprah is from Chicago,” Clinton said. “She was never going to be for anybody but Obama.”
The timing of Clinton’s second appearance on Oprah’s show was politically sensitive, because everyone knew that four days later she was hosting a huge fund-raiser for Obama at “The Promised Land,” her forty-two-acre estate in Montecito. The event, planned to accommodate at least sixteen hundred people paying $2,300 apiece, was trumpeted as one of the largest political fund-raisers in history. One late-night comic joked, “Oprah’s fund-raiser is projected to raise three million dollars; two million of which is to come from the ‘Dunk Stedman’ booth.”
Oprah’s fund-raiser had been announced in July, and people across the country scrambled to buy tickets as much to support Obama as to see Oprah’s $50 million mansion, with its man-made lake and rolling meadows. The event received wide coverage around the world and, according to Oprah, it “was no small thing for me [to open the gates of my estate].… I really do feel that this place is God’s gift to me. It is a very, very special place.… There are going to be some serious restrictions and requirements to get in there.”
She insisted that no one be allowed inside the twenty-three-thousand-square-foot mansion, so the event was staged outside on a sunny Saturday afternoon with Stevie Wonder (an Obama favorite) performing. More than sixteen hundred people attended, sitting on apple green blankets that Oprah had commissioned with “Obama 08” woven in the corner. Tents filled with tables of food and drink (mini hamburgers and “electric” lemonade spiked with vodka) dotted the landscaped lawns, where squadrons of waiters scampered about with silver trays. No press was allowed, and all guests were wanded by security guards after being relieved of cameras and recording devices. With the exception of a few VIPs, no one was allowed to drive into the premises, so everyone had to assemble ten miles away and be transported by shuttle buses. Celebrities in the majority African American crowd included Whoopi Goldberg, Sidney Poitier, Ernie Banks, Bill Russell, Jimmy Connors, Linda Evans, Lou Gossett, Jr., Cicely Tyson, Forest Whitaker, Tyler Perry, Chris Rock, Cindy Crawford, George Lucas, and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds.
After the picnic, Oprah hosted a dinner party for two hundred in a huge tent with crystal chandeliers. “It was a magical night that I will never forget,” said Valerie Jarrett, a close Chicago friend of the Obamas and now senior advisor to the president.
“Marred only by one diva moment,” recalled another Chicago guest. “When Cindy Moelis and her husband, Bob Rivkin, arrived with the Obamas—Cindy is one of Michelle Obama’s best friends—Oprah was very ungracious. She invited the Obamas inside, but directed Cindy and Bob to wait outside, where they sat on one of the unreserved green blankets. The meadow soon filled up.… Oprah and Stedman came out and sat on a reserved blanket in front of Cindy and Bob, an arm’s length away. One of Oprah’s bodyguards came over and told Cindy they