the celebrification of the Obamas continues

This time it’s courtesy of a totally tone-deaf Michelle Obama, who suggests that Barack is an accessory:

“Barack and I — as partners, as friends and as lovers — we accessorize each other in many ways,” said Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. “The best thing I love having on me is Barack on my arm and vice versa, whether it’s having him standing there smiling at me, or watching him mesmerize a crowd or talk to some seniors in a senior center.”

That is sure to improve Obama’s image as a potential commander in chief, dontcha think? There will be more in this vein, too. HuffPo reports:

Among the highlights in the Essence story, Ifill reports from the campaign bus as the family travels to Montana, and how they interact with supporters and with each other. “The Obamas pride themselves on creating a family picture that is authentically black with shades of Norman Rockwell,” she summarizes.

Listen up: I totally understand the cultural fascination with the Obama family. Even I am fascinated by the Obama family. But selling the family—printing the legend, as it were—only gets you fans. It is no guarantee of votes.

Minor correction: It may get you votes in the primary if your fairy godmother’s name is Oprah.

In this paper, we use geographic differences in subscriptions to O! – The Oprah Magazine and the sale of books Winfrey recommended as part of Oprah’s Book Club to assess whether her endorsement affected the Primary outcomes. We find her endorsement had a positive effect on the votes Obama received, increased the overall voter participation rate, and increased the number of contributions received by Obama. No connection is found between the measures of Oprah’s influence and Obama’s success in previous elections, nor with underlying local political preferences. Our results suggest that Winfrey’s endorsement was responsible for approximately additional 1,000,000 votes for Obama.

I wrote about the Oprah-Obama nexus here, where I also discussed Matthew Baum’s research about the impact of “soft news” on “low information voters.” Maybe all that overexposure did have an effect for Obama in the primaries. But even if it did, Oprah’s endorsement is not helping him today, in the general, where some pollling tells rather a different story.

Barack Obama has lost ground among some of his strongest bases of support, including young people, women, Democrats and independents, according to a new ATV/Zogby poll. …

Zogby called the results a “notable turnaround” from a July survey he did that showed Obama leading by 46-36.

“McCain made signifciant gains at Obama’s expense among some of what had been Obama’s strongest demographic groups,” Zogby said.

His findings:

-Among voters aged 18-29, Obama lost 16 percent and McCain gained 20. Obama still leads, 49-38;

-Among women, McCain gained 10 percentage points. Obama now leads 43-38;

-Among independents, Obama lost an 11 point lead. They’re now tied;

-Among Democrats, Obama’s support dropped from 83 percent to 74 percent;

-Among Catholics, Obama lost the 11 point lead he had in July and now trails McCain by 15.

Zogby said Obama also lost ground among minorities.

He attributed Obama’s erosion of support to McCain’s criticisms of Obama as inexperienced in the wake of Obama’s trip to Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq and to Obama’s flips on some issues.