12 Aug
This study is fascinating: a pair of University of Maryland researchers claim to have quantified the “Oprah effect” on Obama by positing a correlation between sales of her magazine (“O”) and books recommended by her book club with county-level vote data. Their results (which are available in full here) claim that Oprah’s endorsement and subsequent campaigning for Obama was worth approximately one million votes. A quick scan of the regression reveals this to be a pretty solid correlation—so now I have to figure out how to get Oprah to endorse me for something.
