[OFFICIAL] Amy Klobuchar for President thread

Oh no...Nothing like Hillary at all in my opinion. Yeah definitely do your homework. I honestly think she has what it takes to make a real difference.

 

Like I said Hillary lite.

 

Interesting article from March of last year in the Washington Post (I didn't see it posted in the thread) that goes into much more detail about her record during her time as chief prosecutor for her Minnesota county. Make of it what you will. I will say that she does need to start crossing over if she's going to have a chance:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...9e6984-4057-11e9-9361-301ffb5bd5e6_story.html

Christopher Burns, a 44-year-old black man, was unarmed and at home in Minneapolis with his fiancee and three young children when the police arrived in response to a domestic violence call. The officers put him in a chokehold, and he died on the scene, according to the medical examiner.

The 2002 incident marked the third killing of a black person by the city’s police department that year, prompting local activists to stage rallies and demand that the two officers involved in Burns’s death face charges.

The focus of the community’s anger was Amy Klobuchar, the up-and-coming attorney of Hennepin County, who had declined to prosecute police accused of using excessive force against black suspects.

“WE MUST NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS!” one activist group wrote in a newsletter. “Many people are watching to see if she will really fight for justice in this case.”

Klobuchar, then 42, declined to bring charges against the officers, and a grand jury she convened did not indict them.

Nearly two decades later, Klobuchar is a Democratic senator running for president, the culmination of a remarkably smooth rise built in part on the tough-on-crime image she cultivated during eight years as a prosecutor. But her record from that time is getting a closer look as she introduces herself beyond heavily white Minnesota, courting an increasingly diverse Democratic base that is closely attuned to racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

As chief prosecutor for Minnesota’s most populous county from 1999 to 2007, Klobuchar declined to bring charges in more than two dozen cases in which people were killed in encounters with police.

At the same time, she aggressively prosecuted smaller offenses such as vandalism and routinely sought longer-than-recommended sentences, including for minors. Such prosecutions, done with the aim of curbing more serious crimes, have had mixed results and have been criticized for their disproportionate effect on poor and minority communities.

“We were already a community in distress when she became Hennepin County attorney,” said Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and former president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP. “Rather than taking steps to help mitigate some of those concerns and issues, during her tenure in office, her policies exacerbated the situation.”

Klobuchar’s positions were largely mainstream, coming after a historically violent period for Minnesota and the nation. But views have shifted sharply since then, particularly among liberal Democrats, as concerns mount over the impact of aggressive policing on communities of color.

Similar questions are emerging about some of Klobuchar’s rivals for the Democratic nomination, including Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.), a former state attorney general and local prosecutor who has been forced to defend her record on the death penalty. Former vice president Joe Biden, who is expected to make an announcement about the race next month, led the effort to pass a 1994 crime law that has been blamed for contributing to the mass incarceration of minorities over two decades.

In her first in-depth comments as a presidential candidate about this period of her career, Klobuchar said she reserved her most aggressive actions for repeat offenders.

“When I first came into the office, the major thing I heard from the African American community, bar none, was that there were a bunch of their kids that were killed by gangsters,” she said in an interview with The Washington Post. “We simply went in and did our jobs. We prosecuted those cases and got results for our community.”

Her campaign noted that the prison incarceration rate for African Americans in the county declined during her tenure, though experts said that did little to ameliorate a dramatic disparity between black and white prison rates.

Klobuchar said she supports recent decisions by several county attorneys in Minnesota not to use grand juries in police-involved killings, which she said will increase accountability for prosecutors.

Asked if she has any regrets from her own tenure, she said she wished she had taken more “individual responsibility” in those cases.

“I don’t have a perfect record. But I promise you, every single day in that job, I tried to put myself in other people’s shoes to try to do the right thing,” she said.

Tough-on-crime prosecutor
Klobuchar was elected prosecutor by promising “meaningful and, when appropriate, severe” consequences for people who break the law.

When the 38-year-old corporate lawyer launched her 1998 campaign, the Twin Cities were recovering from a long wave of violent crime, and many communities were demanding help. Minneapolis had earned the nickname “Murderapolis” in 1995, when its homicide rate peaked. At the time, the ratio of African Americans to whites in state prison was among the worst in the country.

During her campaign, Klobuchar vowed a zero-tolerance approach toward nonviolent crimes by young people, including petty theft and vandalism.


“The broken windows theory is correct,” she wrote in a 1998 candidate statement, embracing the policing theory popularized by then-New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and his police commissioner, William Bratton, in the mid-1990s. The idea was that cracking down on minor offenses can prevent more serious crimes.

After beating her opponent by less than 1 percent, the new county attorney followed through on her campaign promises, adopting an aggressive approach to felony and juvenile prosecutions across dozens of police jurisdictions in and around Minneapolis.

Under Klobuchar, local prosecutors were assigned to police precincts to crack down on smaller offenses such as check forgery. In cases of property crime, they sought longer-than-recommended sentences for offenders with five convictions. Some men who failed to pay child support received felony charges.

In the interview, Klobuchar cited figures from the Vera Institute of Justice showing that the prison incarceration rate for African Americans in the county declined by about 13 percent during her tenure.

Jasmine Heiss, director of outreach with the Vera Institute, said the figure mirrored statewide trends that were the result of a variety of factors. She said the disparity between black and white prison incarceration was nearly four times the national average.

“Hennepin County overall — both during Amy Klobuchar’s tenure and subsequently — has not meaningfully addressed the shocking racial disparities in the local justice system,” Heiss said.

​

 

Continued:

A diverse field
Klobuchar is positioning herself as a centrist in a diverse field of candidates, some of whom have nurtured ties with the black community. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who is African American, promoted the criminal justice reform bill that was enacted late last year. Harris, a former California attorney general, has said her parents’ South Asian and Jamaican heritage informs her efforts to promote racial justice.

Several candidates, including Klobuchar, have endorsed some form of reparations for African Americans as redress for slavery and America’s history of racial discrimination.

Klobuchar’s campaign noted that she was one of about a dozen original co-sponsors of the First Step Act, a sweeping bipartisan measure aimed at lowering the recidivism rate. It received broad support in Congress and became law in December of last year.

But critics say Klobuchar has never publicly reckoned with a period of her career that they recall with bitterness.

“We even saw Hillary Clinton apologize for the use of the term ‘super-predators,’ ” said Armstrong, the former Minneapolis NAACP president. “We’ve not seen Amy Klobuchar take the same steps to apologize or reach out to our community to make amends.”

Clinton expressed regret as a presidential candidate about her 1996 remark about the “kinds of kids that are called super-predators,” using a racially loaded term to describe young people who she suggested commit crime because they have “no conscience, no empathy.”

In the interview with The Post, Klobuchar acknowledged that her rhetoric about not letting juvenile crime “go unpunished” might have been perceived as harsh by some African Americans but said her actions were directed by what county residents wanted.

“I understand how those words mean something that is not good in the African American community. It makes it sound like you want to put their kids behind bars, and that is not what I did when I was county attorney,” she said.

Her campaign noted her achievements in other areas as a prosecutor, including a partnership with the Innocence Project to prevent wrongful convictions that involved videotaping police interrogations and DNA testing. Klobuchar also prioritized white-collar crimes, which her allies say led to harsher punishment for white offenders.

'Not one' police prosecution
Klobuchar easily won reelection as county attorney on Nov. 5, 2002. Four days before, Burns was killed when two Minneapolis police officers responded to a call from his Chicago Avenue home.

Accounts differ on what happened. In a lawsuit against the officers and the city of Minneapolis, which settled for $300,000 in 2007, Burns’s fiancee said that police handcuffed Burns before beating and strangling him with an aggressive neck hold that fractured the cartilage around his throat. Among the witnesses was his 4-year-old daughter, the lawsuit stated.

Police said Burns struggled violently for several minutes and that they responded with a sanctioned form of neck hold. A lawyer for the officers later called the case a “bad combination of circumstances for the guy,” pointing to Burns’s history of high blood pressure and heart disease as possible factors in his death.

The use of grand juries in police-involved killings, as in this case, was a common practice in Minnesota and around the country at the time. Still, Klobuchar’s decision not to bring charges or appoint a special prosecutor in the Burns case angered critics.

Michelle Gross, a local activist who launched Communities United Against Police Brutality in 2000, said incidents with police caused a total of 40 civilian deaths during Klobuchar’s tenure. The Post counted more than 25 such cases in a review of news coverage from the time; the majority of those killed were people of color or mentally ill.

“She did not prosecute a single one of them,” Gross said. “Not one.”

Years later, after pressure from the community, several county attorneys started to make their own choices about whether to prosecute officers rather than hand the decisions to grand juries, which operate outside of public view and have tended to side with law enforcement.

Klobuchar praised this trend, which she described as an “effort to increase accountability for prosecutorial decisions.”

Reflecting on Klobuchar’s tough-on-crime record, some experts said she would have had limited awareness of the impact of her policies on African Americans.

“A lot of what we know about how detrimental mass incarceration is in communities — particularly communities of color — we just didn’t know then,” said John Roman, criminal justice expert and a senior fellow in the Economics, Justice and Society Group at NORC at the University of Chicago. “At the time, we were coming off of 20 years of now-unthinkable levels of violence and grasping at ways to protect communities, and there was a raging debate about whether prison was the right answer.”

Monique Cullars-Doty, whose nephew was fatally shot by officers in St. Paul in 2015, said she does not consider Klobuchar an ally.

“If she cared about black lives, she would already be engaged and advocating for change,” Doty said.

Jeff Hayden, a Democratic state senator in Minnesota who is African American and a friend of Klobuchar’s, said he “wouldn’t disagree” with critics that race relations “hasn’t been something that’s been her focus in Minnesota.” He said Klobuchar must fully address the issue as the primary season heats up.

“She’s on a stage now that’s much bigger than just being Minnesota’s favorite gal,” Hayden said. “I look forward to it as an opportunity to put these things on the table, and for her to start delivering these messages and to be a leader.”​

 

Heh

 

Every candidate deserves to be vetted. It comes with the territory, so these attempts at digging up dirt on her are not surprising.

If I were her I’d consider putting an op-ed out there, or somehow squeezing this into a debate answer, explaining the facts of her record as a prosecutor, apologize for not doing better and try to put it behind her. Especially regarding the Myron Burrell case, since that seems to be the root of the discussion regarding her race problem. She also didn’t do herself any favors in that Sunny Hostin exchange. She gave almost no pushback to Hostin’s assertion that she was essentially an inept prosecutor and indifferent to racial injustice.

Even Burrell’s own attorney admitted Klobuchar didn’t specifically do anything wrong. This is a matter of oversight, since she wasn’t directly involved with the first trial. She let line prosecutors handle the case, and as others have noted, she had no involvement whatsoever with the second trial. She’s said on multiple occasions the case and new evidence needs to be reviewed.

She’s not running from this topic, but much like with Pete: the MSM has her pegged as a flawed candidate that lacks minority support and also has a noteworthy scandal regarding racial injustice. That scandal supports the narrative that they’re pushing. I think she should take a moment to tell her side of the story, apologize and try to put it behind her.

That said, the rest of this is all BS. As others have already mentioned, her comments on border fencing and immigration are a non-story.

....and she forgot the name of Mexico’s President. Cool. Here’s your daily reminder that our current POTUS thinks Colorado borders Mexico.

 

Agree with the bolded; she needs to do this immediately...and then make a concerted effort to reach out to minority communities/leaders to start building trust now. She really can’t afford to wait and she doesn’t have billions of dollars to spend her problems away.

 

And that the chiefs play in Kansas

 

.........

Thank you for posting his and it's a good piece that matches what I recall of Klobuchar's time. For full disclosure I live in Hennepin County and I was here during Klobuchar's time as DA All of these issues are fair game and worthwhile for assessing how successful she might be. A couple of things need to be pointed out too. In the mid 90's Minneapolis went through a spate of bad crime which lead to the NYTimes dubbing it "Murderapolis" Many including those in minority communities were calling for more police action. While Klobuchar did get criticized by people like Nekima Levy Armstrong she did get strong support by a large majority of Hennepin county residents which led to overwhelming reelection and to her strong victories in two statewide campaigns.

On the Myron Burrell case for those who don't know this case involved the murder of a 7 year old black girl who was doing her homework inside her house. She was killed by a stray bullet that went through the wall of her home. This case traumatized Minnesota and there was a very large outcry to see justice done for Tyesha. Klobuchar was initially praised for the handling of the case and for delivering for Edwards' family and Tyesha's mother appeared for the Klobuchar campaign for Senate. The second trial of Myron Burrell Klobuchar had nothing to do with that as she was already a US Senator. While there certainly are questions regarding the conviction of Burrell given that he was granted a second trial I'm not sure how much can be be blamed on Klobuchar for where the case is now.

I brought this point up in another thread but the issues surrounding Klobuchar, minorities, the police and justice are very similar to what Buttigieg, Bloomberg, and Harris were going through. People who have primarily been in the Senate have been somewhat removed from dealing with criminal issues while Mayors and prosecutors have to deal with them directly. That all of these candidates are facing similar issues even though they come from very different cities might say more about the overall state of race relations and law enforcement than it does with them as individuals.

For that matter those in the Senate aren't immune as noted for criticism of Biden regarding the 1994 Crime Bill. Let's not forget too that then Representative Bernie Sanders also voted for that bill.

 

Amy Klobuchar on Meet the Press. "Trump is calling Bloomberg 5'4" and short. Bloomberg is shooting back that he is taller. I'm the only candidate that is actually 5'4"!"

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-amy-klobuchar-on-face-the-nation-february-16-2020/

The following is a transcript of an interview with Senator Amy Klobuchar that aired Sunday, February 16, 2020, on "Face the Nation."

MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're back with Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. She joins us this morning from Las Vegas. Senator, good to have you.

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR: Great to be on, MARGARET. Thanks.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you take Attorney General Barr at his word that he would not take legal measures for political purposes and that his personal intervention in the Roger Stone case had nothing to do with the president's directive?

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: You know, I think he needs to go under oath, and I'm very glad that he's going to have to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. I also hope he comes over to our Senate Judiciary Committee as well, because that's where we're really going to be able to get that answer. The president is constantly tweeting out different requests of the Justice Department. And I think here where you've got career prosecutors that made difficult decisions about how to handle this case, they got a conviction, they put their all into it, and then they get undermined on the sentencing. And they- one of them leaves the Justice Department, the other one gets transferred off the case. That is not normal at all. You have to allow justice to have its course, and that means no political intervention.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. We'll see if that hearing happens, Senator. But I want to get to your candidacy now. You are a 2020 contender. You did well in New Hampshire. Nevada's a very different state. It is more diverse. So that means you also need to broaden your support. How do you do that?

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Well, I'm very excited about our chances here. We just had a double digit poll out of one of the newspapers. I also just got the Las Vegas Sun endorsement, and we've had huge events here, over a thousand people in Reno. We're building up our staff all over the country, actually in the Super Tuesday states, because finally, I've gotten the resources I need, over $12 million just in the little over a week since the New Hampshire debate--

MARGARET BRENNAN: But you have to pl--

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: --because regular people--

MARGARET BRENNAN: --play a little catch up there.

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: That's for sure. But for me, I look at Las Vegas and Nevada, I see this.

I'm the leader on tourism in the U.S. Senate. Big- big employers here. Number two, I've been good on union issues and stood by working people. My whole background is a union background, my grandpa, my dad, my mom. Third, two women U.S. senators here. Majority women in the legislature. They are lo- used to electing women and they're very proud of it. And then finally, since the moment I got to the Senate, I worked on immigration reform. Ted Kennedy asked me as a new senator to be in the small group that worked on it when George Bush was president. Unfortunately, we came close. We didn't make it. I worked on it again when Obama was president. And as president, I will get it done. So I'm actually been having a lot of fun out here, not to mention it's nice to be in the sun.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, roughly 19 percent of Nevada's population was born outside the U.S. I mean that's a significant portion, fifth largest in the country. You're getting criticized this week because you are just now making some changes to your immigration position. And you also said English- you reversed your position on whether English should be the national language. Do you think that reversal this week actually won you support?

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: That wasn't this week. And- and understand not everyone's following every twist and turn of this campaign. But I said this way, way back, months and months ago, back in Miami when I was asked by a journalist. That- that was an early vote on English as the official language. A number of other Democrats voted the same way, and actually nearly all Democrats eventually voted for it. It was in the base bill. I know that's not a good idea because it would be hard to translate brochures and voting materials and the like. And I was glad after working on the latest version, the 2013 immigration bill, that that wasn't in there. It shouldn't be in there.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But on the specifics of what you would do differently, Joe Biden did an interview with Univision in which he was pressed over the deportations of three million people during the Obama administration. He says now that was a big mistake. Do you believe it was a mistake for the administration to deport people who did not have criminal records?

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: I think that that went way too far, yes. And I think you've seen a lot of that across our country. The question is, what do we do going forward? And to me, the very straightforward answer is comprehensive immigration reform. It would save $158 billion in reduction on the deficit in just 10 years. And part of that money, when you talk about deportations, could be used for our asylum process, to improve that. Part of it could be used to help those Northern Triangle countries and allow people to seek asylum from those countries. I would immediately, as president, stop the heinous practice of separating kids from their parents at the border in my first 100 days.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I also want to ask about issues around race. Michael Bloomberg has come under some criticism for his time as mayor: stop-and-frisk, past public comments he's also made that are now viewed as insensitive, to say the least. You yourself have said there are racial disparities in the criminal justice system. You were a prosecutor. And if you look at the black and white prison rates in the county where you served, there are disparities. So for you as a candidate, do you have regrets about your tenure?

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: I think anyone involved in the criminal justice system, including me, we know that it must be changed. And I, back then, knew that there were issues. We actually saw a 12 percent reduction in African-American incarceration rates during my eight years leading the office that handled about ten to fifteen thousand cases a year. I pioneered a new form of eyewitness identification, working with the Innocence Project to try to reduce racially discriminatory misidentifications. I reviewed all of our DNA serious cases to check to make sure there were not issues with those cases. And I diversified the office. But as for what Michael Bloomberg did, I- stop-and-frisk, that is unconstitutional. And I'll say this, I am on your show right now, MARGARET, answering these tough questions. Where is he? He just keeps running a bunch of ads. He'll probably have more ads during your show in certain states than I'm on answering your questions. I think he cannot hide behind the airwaves and the money. I think he has to come on the shows. And I personally think he should be on the debate stage. I'm never going to beat him on the airwaves, but I can beat him on the debate stage.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Klobuchar, thank you very much.

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, MARGARET. It was wonderful to be on.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And we'll be right back with a lot more FACE THE NATION. Stay with us.​

 

She’s got it. I really hope she starts to catch on nationally. I’m proudly casting my vote in favor of her on the March 3rd primary, no matter how well she does in NV or SC. I think she could easily finish top 3 in both places though

 

I just donated $100 to her campaign. @Corrosion , @B-Bob , @EddieWasSnubbed , others? Care to match or donate any amount? (They ask for $5 on her website).

https://amyklobuchar.com/donations/

 

Other Houstonians are backing Klobuchar
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/op...crat-primary-election-2020-potus-15060430.php

We recommend Amy Klobuchar in Democratic primary for president [Editorial]

It’s difficult to watch even now — that graceless moment during Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation when he cracked under pressure, shattering the fine shell of judicial temperament and hurling contempt at a senator across the room.

That senator, whose name many Americans couldn’t pronounce at the time, asked if Kavanaugh had ever drunk so much he couldn’t recall the previous night. No, he responded before turning the question back on Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who only moments before had described her father’s struggle with alcoholism.

“I’m curious if you have,” Kavanaugh said, his mouth twisted with rage.

“Nor do I,” the judge huffed. After a break, Kavanaugh apologized to Klobuchar and reiterated his respect for her.

There in that exchange, we see some of what plagues American political discourse and one thing that can save it: a strong leader who can outwit anger, rise above contempt and exercise the good sense to walk us back from the edge rather than push us closer to it.

For Democrats, that person is Amy Klobuchar, the third-term senator from Minnesota.

Said to be surging after her head-turning third-place finish in New Hampshire, Klobuchar, 59, the daughter of an elementary teacher and newspaperman, had been dismissed by some as a milquetoast, midwestern moderate who couldn’t hold a candle to the burn of Bernie Sanders’ revolution or the ambition of Elizabeth Warren’s fully foot-noted vision.

“Being a progressive, the last time I checked, meant that you should make progress,” Klobuchar says.

It’s time for Democrats to look beyond fiery speeches, beyond big ticket promises devoid of price tags, and if possible, beyond the cinematic beckoning of that billionaire button-down Messiah stalking your smartphone, and ask: Who can really get things done?

Who can get proposals past the gauntlets of the federal judiciary and congressional gridlock? In the current field only Klobuchar and Joe Biden have a track record of bipartisan effectiveness in Washington. Biden, in his third bid for president, hasn’t articulated the fresh vision needed.

Klobuchar is among the most effective lawmakers in Congress, according to the Center for Effective Lawmaking. She boasts passing more than 100 bills, “every one of them bipartisan.”

In her first term, she was among a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushing a comprehensive immigration overhaul including a pathway to citizenship for 12 million undocumented immigrants — reform she still believes is “completely doable.” Her experience on the Senate Judiciary Committee is notable and particularly on the subcommittee that oversees issues important to Texas: border, immigration and citizenship.

In 2018, Klobuchar partnered with Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn and others to pass legislation signed by President Donald Trump that strengthens efforts to reduce the national rape kit backlog.

Not to suggest Klobuchar is “Minnesota Nice.” Indeed, reports from former staffers about how far she veers from nice are troubling. Just ask the staffer whom she demanded wash a hair comb she MacGyvered into an eating utensil after he delivered her salad without a fork.

Sure, plenty of bad-tempered male candidates have emerged unscathed from similar reports. But if Klobuchar wants Americans to believe she’s the decent, empathetic antidote to Trump, she should prove it with her staff.

One of Klobuchar’s refreshing traits is her straight-forwardness in responding to criticism. She admits that she’s been too tough on staff at times. Regarding a much more serious allegation, that as Hannepin County attorney her office sent an innocent black teen, Myon Burrell, to prison for life, Klobuchar was quick to say all evidence should be reviewed.

The case isn’t helping her gain trust among black voters, whose support and knowledge of her are already dismal. She says her efforts to end voting purges and gerrymandering, which erode black voting power, speak to her commitment to equal rights.

Many of the issues Klobuchar speaks passionately about, such as economic opportunity, cut across demographic lines.

From supporting a $15 federal minimum wage to her very personal pledge to invest in research, prevention and treatment of addiction and mental illness, Klobuchar seems driven to improve Americans’ daily lives. She eschews “Medicare for All” for a pragmatic public option. She has a strong record on combatting gun violence, and has prioritized universal background checks, funding research and closing the ‘boyfriend loophole’ — all commonsense reforms that she says won’t hurt responsible gun owners such as the oft-mentioned “Uncle Dick in his deer stand.”

She supports California-style mileage standards and opposes a fracking ban, instead seeing natural gas as a “transition fuel,” but her goals on climate change are aggressive: 45 percent reduction of carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutral by 2050.

Above all, Klobuchar has the secret sauce many Democrats prize most: electability.

A candidate whose presidential election would make history, her crossover appeal in and of itself packs a powerful punch. Democrats need someone who can stare down a bully while keeping an eye out for the little guy, someone who can grow the ranks, not divide them. Klobuchar is the woman for the job.

 

I donated to Klobuchar twice. A few months ago to make sure she would be in the debates and two weeks ago. I'm not fully won over by any of the Democratic candidates but she's been slowly winning me over. It's also hard to avoid Klobuchar in Minnesota.

 

I have not donated to her yet, but now I am promising to do so this week. Not $100, but much more than $5 for sure.

She's my fave candidate, not just for the party but for the country. The Chronicle actually makes some very good points. Her interaction with Kav-bro was the stuff of legends. Outwitting rage indeed. We need that in the worst way. And we need a president who can really operate with Congress. Maybe that's impossible in our times, but she gives us our best shot.

I also think her down-ballot effect, of all Dem candidates, would be most substantial. She would totally mop up in suburbs, whereas (IMHO) Bernie less so.

 

Wait what?

What the hell does the MSM have to do with this?

Now the MSM is pushing a narrative about Klobachar?

Didn't you say everyone should be vetted but now it's the MSM who has pegged her?

You don't get to say what's a non story it's all open when running for president.

So who is the MSM not pushing a narrative against?

 

How has the MSM pegged her as anything?

 

It’s not that they’re pushing a narrative against anyone (though Bernie supporters would disagree), but everyone knows the MSM likes to fan the flames of controversy, scandal and the like. It’s what gets the most hits. The 2016 election was the best example of this.

Klobuchar and Pete and have a lot of work to do to earn the support of the African American community. They also both have controversies that are directly related to this topic. So of course MSM is going to relentlessly report on this. Do you see anything about the numerous endorsements both candidates have collected recently from that community? No. It’s all about the controversy, and that’s primarily what I was speaking to.

And of course they deserve to be vetted and any topic is fair game. That said, I’m allowed to look at a topic like, say, Klobuchar’s unearthed comments on immigration and conclude it’s not a real story in my opinion. NH was a game-changer for her and she’s earning more scrutiny now. It’s fair game. Controversy sells and it’s up to each individual candidate to deliver and create their own narrative.