Sen. Amy Klobuchar may not be allowed to speak much...she is dropping the mic when she does.

[sheshe2]

Her passion and empathy to the women that are asking questions is stellar. You can see and feel her passion. Brava.

Cassidy and Graham, they just be mansplain'.

[a kennedy]

1. That's my Senator......along with Al Franken....

[MLAA]

3. It's not fair you got the two best ones!

[sheshe2]

4. Congrats!!!!!!

I am not doing badly myself with Warren and Markey!

Lucky us!

[Gore1FL]

12. You're Lucky!

I have a decent congressman, but the best I have in the Senate is McCaskill. As sorry as that is, I am hoping like hell I can keep her because god knows whoever the GOP puts up will be like Blunt or worse.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

31. Mine, too. And Keith Ellison is my representative!

[JoeOtterbein]

2. Yes, she should get much more time. She's getting ripped off right now!

[sheshe2]

7. True...

Yet she made damn good use of her time.

Brava!

[aikoaiko]

5. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is doing great.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Sen Amy Klobuchar is my top 2020 pick. And has been for quite some time.

[sheshe2]

8. I plan to keep my eye on her as well.

We have a lot of potential out there.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. She's one of my senators and I'm not so sure.

She presents herself very well; she's smart and articulate; but when push comes to shove she often prefers to avoid taking on controversial issues, instead focusing mostly on feel-good stuff like not importing honey from China. If you write to her office about something, whatever answer you might get from some staffer is inevitably vague, anodyne and designed not to offend anybody. I'm afraid she would back down when confronted with strong opposition because she seems to want to please everybody.

[Ninsianna]

15. Have you seen her back down when confronted by anyone?

This is one of those soft types of sexism. Women are expected to present a non offensive, mild seeming front, which leads men to think they're not strong and expect them to back down to be a people pleaser.

Having watched her work in the Senate, what I see is an iron fist in a velvet glove, she seems like a a very nice, sweet lady, so sweet and soft spoken that her adversaries don't quite understand why their guts have spilled on the floor while they were musing about how vague and pleasant she was being.

This a defense mechanism that women must adopt to avoid the nastiness that men dish out when they're dealing with women who are smarter and more effective than they are. It's a game Hillary doesn't play, which is why men have hated her since the very beginning, she's not enough of a people pleaser.

*I'm not accusing you of being consciously sexist, but this is the the sexism of our society that leads to both the affectations and the opinions men have when they see women adopting this facade.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

19. It's not sexism, conscious or otherwise,

to observe that Sen. Klobuchar seems to have shown a tendency to avoid controversial positions. If you have ever corresponded with her office you'd know what I mean. I would be just as critical of a male politician who responded to a constituent's concerns with noncommittal pablum. I think she is getting better in her public appearances but I have not been all that impressed with her responses to controversial issues. She tends to back away from them. I'm not a guy, by the way; I'm a woman who expects straight answers and evidence of a spine from all politicians regardless of their gender.

[Demsrule86]

20. No, it is sexism...the habit of men to talk over women.

I have experienced it multiple times over the years...as a blond who is about 5'3' and a half...I have literally been patted on the head. I had to be twice as good to get anywhere. I also experience sexual harassment...most women do.

[Calista241]

23. Its not sexism to ask politicians to take a position and answer questions.

They want our vote. We are entitled to know what we are voting for. Hillary and Bernie had in depth policy positions that they talked about regularly, and posted online.

If Klobuchar wants to be considered as President in 2020, she needs to do the same.

[Demsrule86]

33. I think women Senators are treated quite differently than their male counterparts.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

25. That is sexism. But pointing out that a senator tends to answer constituent contacts

with wishy-washy, noncommittal responses is not.

[Kaleva]

24. I get the same kind of responses from my own Senators

Rather bland and nonconfrontional. Thanking me for my input.

[Ninsianna]

30. That's kind of how politicians work, they don't take firm positions on controversial

issues in personal responses to their constituents. That's sort of a generic politician's response.

I don't know what your specific issues were, or what you were expecting, so I can't comment.

Pablum is kinda what their aides dish out. I'm glad you clarified, since I thought you were addressing her demeanor last night during the debate, which I've seen may comment on.

I didn't make an assumption on your gender, we have a real issue with sexism in this country and it bleeds through into the unconscious attitudes towards women in both genders and it's something we really need to call out, as we were forcefully reminded of in the past two years.

Keep speaking up and I hope you will be joining us in calling out the issue I brought up, even if it doesn't apply to you specifically here.

[marylandblue]

32. The sexism issue concerns me for 2020

It clearly hurt Hillary, but I don't think it's because she didn't play the game, it's because the game can't be won. If a woman is too soft, she is weak. If she is too strong, she is bitchy. I'm afraid that someone like Klobuchar would be considered too soft, and too many people will accept it without thinking.

[Ninsianna]

36. Agreed.

I was referring to her history with the game thing, remember the baking cookies thing? She tired to play the game all the way back in Arkansas, she knew it couldn't be won.

But that's something we need to address on every level, since Hillary is not the only one who suffers due to this.

I think we all face that in our daily lives, and too many people do internalize this, even women. I'm not sure why people think women don't also absorb all this when it permeates our culture and our society, if not our species.

[Weekend Warrior]

37. Like when she...

https://m.

https://m.

Or

https://m.

Or when she went to debate healthcare yet most of the talk after was about the men in the room.

https://m.

Taking on prescription drug prices.

Tougher antitrust scrutiny in mergers.

Taking on electoral security.





She has proven herself to be tough and doesn't back away from ideological challenges.

But her emails!!!

[leanforward]

10. She made a good prosecutor.

I had an opportunity to meet Prosecutor Klobuchar some years ago in the performance of her duties. She was great. She'll be tough where necessary. She and the police made the situation I was dealt into a lot better, after the fact.

I would vote for her as President.

[DesertRat]

11. "I love these guys, but if we could have a few more women senators"

Link to tweet

[Ninsianna]

16. +1,000,000,000

[Lordquinton]

13. Amy and Bernie make a great pair

I hope she's taking pointers!

[Ninsianna]

17. She really was great, I hope he is taking pointers. This is what she was trained to do, and

it was her job. He needs to brush up on his techniques.

And for god's sake someone on his staff needs to tell him (and Cassidy) that there's a camera on you, stop making weird manic eyes (Cassidy) and guppy faces (Bernie).

[NurseJackie]

21. I like her conviction... her clarity... her presence and demeanor. The others were struggling.

[MontanaMama]

28. They were!

I thought that Lindsey was going to break down and bawl a couple of times. He was in over his head.

[Ninsianna]

35. He really was, all the men were.

I wish Bernie had been more focused on the lies they told, instead of letting them distract him by their attacks on Medicare and Big Pharma. They threw him a bit.


I did notice how incrementalism is no longer evil and that he seems to have come around to the policies HRC advocated, good for him!

Protect the ACA AND work on what we need to fix it so that we can get to UHC as soon as possible.

Good job Bernie! So glad he's on board! It's not an either/or proposition as the purity folks kept insisting, people need their care assured NOW while we address the numerous problems in our healthcare system, by looking at ALL the fixes. Single Payer, Medicare for all, Medicaid for all, or something else entirely, I don't care, I just want a well thought out plan that works and meets the needs of Americans.

[Ninsianna]

38. Me too.

And it's predictable that people overlook her actual skills, her actual background, and her actual performance in the Senate and on stage last night, and assume that the old white man who doesn't share her education, qualifications and professional history needs to "take pointers" from him.

Um, no. Her three fellow Senators really needed to take some pointers from her. The doctor did a terrible job, his former lawyer colleague lied outright, and the um .. senator (don't know what his educational background is in) all could have learned from her calm poise and grasp of facts.

I do wish she had not let herself be talked over, even if the guy doing so was on her side.

[Lordquinton]

22. Bernie has been living in front of the camera

And it's earned him high accolades. "Just doing her job" is damning with faint praise.

They defended the ACA, then he took it a step further and put their opponents on the defensive, that's how you win!

[Ninsianna]

34. He sure has, I'm so glad people have been figuring out that

silly lie about getting no media coverage was a pile of Bull Puckey.

He's getting "high accolades" from his devoted acolytes, but not from literally anyone else.

I wasn't damning Sen. Klobuchar with faint praise, and I can't fathom whats sort of acrobatic contortions it would take to read that into what I said.

But I guess, "he's been living in front a camera" and gets "high accolades" from people who apparently don't have the skills to notice or correct the facial twitches, is damning whoever is giving these "high accolades" to his staff who apparently either cannot or will not tell their boss some truths that might help him do better in front of a camera, since this is a legitimate and universal criticism of the man from those who are employed by him and not among his devoted cheerleading squad.

She defended the ACA, he didn't take anything further, they didn't put their opponents on the defensive, they could have, but he for one was too busy with defending his own plan. That's kind of the opposite of putting his opponents on the defensive.

Actually, how you win is by scoring points, and pointing out lies, not letting them hit your topic again and again, and never tough the flaming lies they told.

Klobuchar should not have let him interrupt her, and they both needed to be more on the attack.

[BigmanPigman]

14. I am grateful that fellow DUers report back

on these appearances since I can not take the stress/anxiety of the past 8 months. I turn off 45, Kellyanne, Huckabee Sanders and anyone else who makes me physically sick. I already am pretty sick and watching them produces negative results as far as my health is concerned.

[Ninsianna]

18. The summary version is that GRassidy lies as expected

hugely debunked ones, our guys were not on the ball to call out those lies, they needed to work out the tag team bits, Bernie kept stepping on Amy's toes and interrupting people.

I thought they should have aggressively called out Grassidy more and taken the argument to them with regard to why ACA is "failing" since that's exactly the crap Grassidy et al. enabled with their amendments etc.

Too much stuff about medicare, this was not the time and place for it.

All in all, Grassidy came off worse, but I felt that they should have been exposed more. Cassidy seemed to be on a mission to make anyone playing a drinking game based on bringing up his M.D. suffer some severe liver damage.

I mean, if you're an MD who practiced in prisons and public hospitals in Louisiana, then you're a lying sadistic bastard for saying this bill will help people!!

[Gothmog]

26. K&R

[MontanaMama]

27. Didn't Sen Klobuchar do a wonderful job

last night? She only got better as the debate went on.

[sheshe2]

29. I thought she did great, MM.

Thanks.