Winfrey on Obama: ‘I cried my eyelashes off’

updated 7:18 a.m. ET Aug. 29, 2008

DENVER - Oprah Winfrey is leaving Denver with the candidate she wanted, but reportedly without her eyelashes.

The talk-show host said she was moved to tears by Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. And those must've been some serious tears.

"I cried my eyelashes off," she said in the bowels of Invesco Field, moments after Obama accepted the nomination for president before an estimated 84,000 people.

"I think it's the most powerful thing I have ever experienced," she added, calling Obama's words "transcendent."

Video   Obama: ‘We cannot turn back’ Aug. 28: Watch Barack Obama's full speech. MSNBC

On the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream Speech," Winfrey compared Obama's words to those of the civil-rights leader, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

"He's not an African-American candidate," she said. "He's a candidate for Americans."

Winfrey threw her support behind Obama early — even before the Democratic primaries got under way last year. She's stayed active since, hosting rallies and fundraisers that even Obama has acknowledged have given him a boost.

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