HANOVER, N.H. — Over 12-plus years in Congress, Sen. Amy Klobuchar has been best known for her sense of humor and as a Democrat willing to work with Republicans.
But the Minnesota senator, 58, takes umbrage at the notion she’s seeking the Democratic presidential nomination as a bipartisan candidate. That could be a perilous political approach, considering the ascendancy of harder-edged partisans in her party and the rise of the intersectional Left, a grievance-based movement that shuns the type of across-the-aisle deal-cutting Klobuchar has long sought on issues like healthcare and ballot security.
“I think of myself as a proven progressive because I figure if you’re going to be a progressive, you better make progress,” Klobuchar told the Washington Examiner during a two-day swing of New Hampshire. “Sometimes you do that by leading a charge and pushing people into places where they’ve got to be where you stand for, and sometimes you do it by reaching out to people. I’ve done both in my life.”
Klobuchar, one of five Democratic women senators running for president, added, “I don’t just run on bipartisanship — I don’t think that’s very exciting — I run on getting things done.”
[Also read: Kamala Harris and 2020 Democratic women grapple with ‘electability’]
It’s an open question whether that’s a winning strategy as many rank-and-file Democrats itch to confront President Trump aggressively. The Democratic presidential contest is playing out against a backdrop of House Democrats’ considering whether to impeach Trump over what they see as illegalities and corruption based on the Mueller report and his actions over nearly two-and-a-half years as president.
Despite her distaste for the label, bipartisanship emerged as a theme from her four campaign stops in the Granite State. Even her stump speech includes a section where the senator explains that she launched her White House bid on the banks of the Mississippi River to symbolize it is “time to cross the river of our divides to get to a higher plain in our politics.”
At a house party in Salem, N.H., host Janet Breslin-Smith said Klobuchar’s attitude reminded her of an earlier era of Washington, D.C., where Democrats and Republicans collaborated.
“That quality is what makes democracy work,” Breslin-Smith, who serves as the Salem Democratic Town Committee’s vice chairwoman, told the crowd.
Alice Guttman, a 40-year-old environmental consultant who’s still undecided, said she was drawn to Klobuchar’s incremental approach to issues because she herself wasn’t a risk-taker, contending lawmakers “have to be able to operate in the real world.”
Larry Disenhof, 62, who works in tech and is leaning toward Klobuchar, spoke about the need for “moderate voices that are pro-business and pro-environment.” That’s because they can win “red districts and beat” President Trump next year, he said.
Although George Mason University political science associate professor Jennifer Nicoll Victor told the Washington Examiner Klobuchar’s pragmatic brand had helped her political career in the past, she wasn’t convinced it would boost her prospects in 2020.
“Unfortunately for her, there are a few other people in that lane already — most importantly, Joe Biden — who have more name recognition and national standing,” the Washington-area academic said.
But Victor ripped concerns Klobuchar was “too Minnesota nice” to become the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer.
“Being nice is neither a precondition or a disqualifier for the nomination or the White House,” she said. “It is, however, the type of critique that female candidates get more than male candidates and is sometimes unfairly used as a way to disqualify people.”
[Read more: Female Democrats dish on running for president: No one ever asks if a man can win]
For Christopher Galdieri, a politics associate professor at New Hampshire’s Saint Anselm College, Klobuchar’s distinguishing bipartisanship and pragmatism was the senator walking the line between voters who yearn for a less rancorous Washington and those who are “really angry” with the current occupant of the Oval Office.
“New Hampshire has a strong tradition of electing people to statewide office who aren’t partisan warriors and present themselves as problem-solvers,” Galdieri said. “Whether that lets her stand out in a crowded field, of what, 23 candidates, that’s a tall order.”
He was also skeptical that her strategy would woo minority voters who are generally less receptive to that message.
Klobuchar nevertheless insists her pragmatic posture, coalesced with her Midwestern, female perspective, will eventually differentiate her from the other hopefuls.
“My case is not a flash-in-a-pan moment of excitement; it’s a long term effort,” she told the Washington Examiner. “We have built, as you can see here, a really great campaign staff. We’ve done the same thing in Iowa, and that’s how we’re running it. It’s how I’ve run all my campaigns. I’ve always been underestimated.”
