Experts and amateurs have been talking about how Oprah Winfrey's support of Barack Obama might have hurt her ratings and damaged her standing as the reigning queen of daytime television. If this is true, was her Obama campaigning worth it? Two economists from the University of Maryland say yes — Winfrey apparently has superior mind control over one million of the people who voted for Obama.

The economists, Craig Garthwaite and Tim Moore, developed complex numerical formulas to calibrate the might of Oprah's star power, based on book sales, TV ratings, voter turnout and other factors, to determine that she put 1,015,519 votes in the Obama column.

Who knows if this has any merit, but I think the moral of the story is that being friends with Oprah is never a bad thing. [PS]