Politics | Barack Obama Maria Shriver Backs Obama Says if he were a state he'd be California By Peter Fearon Posted Feb 4, 2008 4:01 AM CST Copied California's first lady, Maria Shriver, makes her entrance at a campaign rally in support of Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Feb. 3, 2008, in the Westwood section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ric Francis) (Associated Press) Another member of the Kennedy clan, California's First Lady Maria Shriver, made a shock endorsement of Barack Obama yesterday, three days after husband Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Republican John McCain. Shriver's announcement electrified Obama supporters at a UCLA rally where Oprah, singer Stevie Wonder and Shriver's cousin Caroline Kennedy appeared, reports the Sacramento Bee. Shriver said she made the decision to back Obama just hours before her endorsement. "I thought if Barack Obama would be a state, he'd be California—diverse, open, smart, independent, bucks tradition, inspiring, dreamer, leader," Shriver shouted as the crowd greeted her appearance with thunderous applause. Read These Next A former NFL Pro Bowler has died at age 36. Major websites, apps affected by massive outage. Secret Service finds something strange pointed at Trump's plane. The massive AWS failure exposed a big problem with the internet. Report an error