On to Oprah

The Los Angeles Times' Tina Daunt gets more details of Oprah Winfrey's Barack Obama fund-raiser, an event that is being labeled as a "celebration," albeit one that will leave all attendees with $2,300 debits.

The afternoon event on Sept. 8 will be a garden party, with guests checking in not at Winfrey's home but at the Earl Warren Fairgrounds in Santa Barbara. For security reasons, invitees are instructed to not bring any type of gifts for Winfrey or Obama, and the invites are absolutely non-transferable.

More than 1,000 people are expected at the event at Winfrey's Montecito estate, in what could be Obama's biggest fund-raiser of the campaign. There's some hope, obviously, that Oprah's endorsement could help Obama electorally, particularly among women and African-Americans.

Arrangements for the Oprah event are far different from other fund-raisers. Her team is directing the efforts, with seven invites each distributed to members of the national finance committee. Included are Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen and Broadway producer Margo Lion.

In case you are wondering, the food will come from  longtime  Oprah chef Art Smith,  who is  launching Chicago's new Table Fifty-Two restaurant with Julie Latsko, according to  Bill Zwecker of the Chicago  Sun-Times.