Barack Obama has been dropping hints for months that Oprah Winfrey would be going out on the campaign trail for him, and he hinted again yesterday, in comments overheard by the Chicago Sun-Times, that plans are in the works for her to start stumping for him in Iowa.

“First she’s coming to Iowa,” Mr. Obama said. When asked if that meant she was not going to New Hampshire, Mr. Obama replied, “No, no no. We’re just doing it one state at a time.”

South Carolina is on the list too, as Mr. Obama said in September. “I can’t make promises,” he told ETV, South Carolina’s public television and radio network, back then. “But I know she has expressed an interest in South Carolina and maybe we can pull that off.”