The economists, Craig Garthwaite and Timothy Moore of the University of Maryland, College Park, (GO TERPS!) contend that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama last year gave him a boost of about one million votes in the primaries and caucuses.

“We think people take political information from all sorts of sources in their daily life,” Moore tells the New York Times, “and for some people Oprah is clearly one of them.”

That’s good news for Barack Obama, but was it good news for Oprah?

Unfortunately, we don’t know for sure how Oprah’s endorsement affected her own popularity because that was not part of the research.

However, reports have indicated that many women were upset by her endorsement.

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