{"id":26673,"date":"2023-05-24T12:13:18","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T19:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=26673"},"modified":"2023-05-24T12:13:19","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T19:13:19","slug":"oprah-winfrey-could-replace-dianne-feinstein-in-senate-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/05\/24\/oprah-winfrey-could-replace-dianne-feinstein-in-senate-report-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Oprah Winfrey could replace Dianne Feinstein in Senate, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/a>Eric Ting<\/a>,\u00a0SFGATE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 23, 2023 (SFGate.com)<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"FILE:
FILE: Oprah Winfrey attends the 29th Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Feb. 5, 2014, in Santa Barbara, Calif. C Flanigan\/FilmMagic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among the many plot lines in the Dianne Feinstein saga<\/a> is Gov. Gavin Newsom’s<\/a> pledge to appoint a Black woman to replace the 89-year-old should a vacancy arise before her term expires in January 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He made that promise during his 2021 anti-recall campaign,<\/a> and a new article from the Associated Press’ Michael R. Blood<\/a> conveys the extent to which the governor may have boxed himself in. While many Black Democrats expect the governor to follow through on his pledge, the two candidates who seemed the most likely at the time of the pledge \u2014 Reps. Barbara Lee and Karen Bass \u2014 may no longer be options. Lee is running against Rep. Adam Schiff to succeed Feinstein, so Newsom may want to avoid tilting the scales in that race. Meanwhile, Bass just began her tenure as mayor of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That leaves the \u201ccaretaker\u201d route, in which Newsom appoints someone who doesn’t enter the Senate race, and the Associated Press story provided just one name that has been \u201cfloated in California circles\u201d as a caretaker pick: celebrity talk show host\u00a0Oprah Winfrey.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For whatever it’s worth, people in \u201cCalifornia circles\u201d often float a ton of unsubstantiated gossip that’s more \u201cHey, I\u2019m just spitballing myself here\u201d versus \u201cHey, a person close to the actual decision-maker told me this thing.\u201d On the Oprah rumor specifically, however, there’s reason to believe it may be closer to the latter than the former. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winfrey has publicly teased<\/a> running for president one day but ultimately passed<\/a> on running in 2020. Still, CNN reported in 2018<\/a> that she was taking a presidential bid seriously. If Winfrey wants to be a candidate in 2028 or beyond, gaining political experience as a caretaker in the Senate until January 2025 would certainly help her cause. And even if she doesn’t want to run for president, simply being able to say \u201cOh, I was once a United States senator\u201d is fun, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returning to the Associated Press story itself, it’s notable that Blood explicitly named Winfrey. The Associated Press typically isn’t as freewheeling as say, Politico, when it comes to floating names for roles; it’s eyebrow-raising not only that she was the singular name floated but also that she was invoked twice<\/em> in the story. When discussing the caretaker dynamic, Blood writes, \u201cThat\u2019s where names like Winfrey come up \u2014 a celebrity who is Black and happens to meet Newsom\u2019s appointment pledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Associated Press does state that \u201ca range of names, from obscure to famous\u201d have been \u201cfloated in California circles,\u201d so this could simply be a case of the publication deciding Winfrey, with her celebrity status, was the only one worth mentioning. But there’s a pretty solid chance it’s something more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written By Eric Ting<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eric Ting is SFGATE’s politics editor. He is an East Bay native who has a Master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University. Eric did his undergrad at Pomona College, where he majored in politics and minored in economics. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Ting,\u00a0SFGATE May 23, 2023 (SFGate.com) Among the many plot lines in the Dianne Feinstein saga is Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pledge to appoint a Black woman to replace the 89-year-old should a vacancy arise before her term expires in January 2025. He made that promise during his 2021 anti-recall campaign, and a new article from the Associated Press’ Michael… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[630],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26674,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26673\/revisions\/26674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}