Amy Klobuchar, Insurgent From the Inside

[question everything]

It’s just after 9 a.m. Saturday, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar is testing a new joke. “We are suddenly seeing what we call a ‘surge,’ ” she says. “I got a text that had a bad autocorrect from a friend a few weeks ago. It said, ‘Congratulations on your insurgency.’ ” It’s a big laugh line for the audience of seniors and young families in this Las Vegas suburb.

Yet the unintended word choice is oddly apt. Talk of a surge isn’t spin: Ms. Klobuchar has attracted larger crowds and raised $12 million since the Feb. 7 debate that vaulted her to a third-place finish in New Hampshire. But a senator with a record of legislative achievement who nonetheless maintains a common touch—she introduces herself as the “granddaughter of an iron ore miner and the daughter of a teacher and a newspaperman”—wouldn’t normally be considered an insurgent. Yet as the progressive left tightened its hold on the Democratic Party in 2019, Ms. Klobuchar’s candidacy turned into a rebellion. Her supporters see her as an attractive alternative to both the radical Sen. Bernie Sanders and the bellicose President Trump.

Larry Morris, 86, a retired long-haul trucker, tells me before the Henderson rally that his favorite thing about Ms. Klobuchar is her frankness: “She’s not afraid to stand up and be counted.” She was the only one at the New Hampshire debate to raise her hand when the candidates were asked if they’d be concerned about having a socialist top the ticket. Unlike Mr. Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Ms. Klobuchar wouldn’t ban fracking. She supports nuclear power. She stands out in this field for saying Democrats should welcome pro-life voters.

(snip)

Ms. Klobuchar’s rebellion against the progressive zeitgeist extends to matters of tone. In contrast with Mr. Sanders’s dourness, Ms. Klobuchar’s rallies are punctuated by laughter. She says Democrats need a “candidate who brings people with her instead of shutting them out.” She tells stories about listening to voters who supported Mr. Trump in 2016.

(snip)

A “general sympathy for people going through rugged periods of their lives” and an “acute sense of what’s doable” have been consistent themes in Ms. Klobuchar’s character since at least college, Theodore Marmor tells me by phone. He’s a professor emeritus at the Yale School of Management who supervised Ms. Klobuchar’s senior essay in 1982. She investigated the politics behind the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, and later published her findings as a crisply written book, “Uncovering the Dome” (1986). Here she defines “success” not as a political revolution, but rather as a stadium built on time and $8 million under budget.

(snip)

“Sometimes the unexpected occurs at the right time and at the right place; the sun glows on the lucky politician,” a young Amy Klobuchar wrote in her senior essay. This Saturday’s caucuses will tell us if the Democratic primary’s insider-insurgent is having such a moment.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amy-klobuchar-insurgent-from-the-inside-11581974379 (subscription)

[elleng]

1. Thanks

[Iggo]

2. I like her.

[BusyBeingBest]

3. Thanks for posting that--I was paywalled from the rest but

I appreciate being able to read some of it.

[question everything]

4. Yes, the "snips" are often what people say

and I choose to post the facts..

[question everything]

5. kick

[squirecam]

6. She has empathy

Which trump lacks. It would be a clear contrast.

[question everything]

7. She does

I don't see any coming from Sanders, though. Fanatic ideologues usually don't. They accept collateral damages.