Amy Klobuchar dispensed with her “Minnesota nice” act during last month’s debate, and the decision helped boost her presidential bid in Iowa.
November’s debate in Atlanta on Thursday night provides another opportunity to claw back ground on the top-tier candidates and insert herself in the 2020 primary, according to Democrats.
Democratic strategist Mike Lux said undecided, likely caucus-goers in Iowa were considering the Minnesota senator, 59, as a centrist alternative to former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, should either front-runner slip in the polls. Her candidacy counters the more liberal platforms of Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
“I think she remains in the mix,” Lux told the Washington Examiner. “She obviously needs to continue to do well in the debates. She needs to hit Pete hard and go after him on his lack of experience, and the fact that he hasn’t taken positions on some issues. In order for her to get in the top three or four, she has to figure out how to take Pete down.”
During the last debate in Ohio, Klobuchar dropped “Minnesota nice” pretenses and went after Warren over her refusal to admit middle-class taxes would go up under “Medicare for all” and for implying that she, through her “wealth tax,” espoused better values than her rivals via their respective tax plans. The strategy was in stark contrast to the approach Klobuchar adopted during the July debate in which she declined to say who she was referring to during a Sunday morning news show interview when she claimed her opponents were making empty promises to get elected.
The former prosecutor’s casual, congenial manner on the campaign trail has earned her fans, particularly in Iowa, where she averages 5% support, according to RealClearPolitics data. Though in single digits, she’s in fifth place behind Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, and Sanders.
“I think that’s a Viking horn. You’re gonna piss off all the Packer fans,” Klobuchar said as a loud noise rang out during this month’s Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice celebration, referencing the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers NFL franchises.
At the same time, the “Minnesota nice” image she projects to the public contradicts with complaints about hostile work environments she has created as an employer. In February, the New York Times reported she once berated a staff member for forgetting to bring a fork onto a plane for her to eat a salad and then made the aide wash a comb she used instead of utensils after she had finished the meal. She later lampooned herself at this year’s Gridiron dinner following her insistence that she was merely a demanding boss.
“How did everyone like the salad? I thought it was OK, but it needed just a bit of scalp oil, and a pinch of dandruff would be a little better,” Klobuchar joked in March.
For Lux, although Klobuchar taking direct shots was a shift, the Yale University and University of Chicago Law School graduate has always “shown sharp elbows” when necessary.
“Early on, in a multi-candidate field, nobody wants to be seen as the biggest asshole in the race,” he said. “In the early days, your biggest goal is to have everybody like you. Then, as time goes on in the campaign and it gets closer and closer, you have to start throwing elbows, you have to start showing more toughness because you’re down to that time when people are picking and choosing. You have to be able to show that you’re tough, that you can take a punch, and that you can give a punch.”
Going on the offense too early was perhaps a lesson Klobuchar learned from California Sen. Kamala Harris, whose momentum after the June debate for confronting Biden over federally mandated busing was blunted by criticism over the premeditated nature of the attack. Harris had t-shirts emblazoned with a childhood photo ready to go for $30 after she took Biden to task for his opposition to the policy in the 1960s and ’70s.
Pat Taylor, 68, a retired probation parole officer from Oelwein, Iowa, told the Washington Examiner after a Buttigieg event this month in Waverly, Iowa, that Harris’s attempt was “scripted.”
“And that’s bullshit,” said Taylor, who will likely caucus for Biden. “It was very ham-handed.”
Although Taylor was open to Klobuchar, she worried about the White House hopeful’s electability.
“I think realistically, the numbers are not in her favor. I like Klobuchar, I do, but a lot has to change for her to move up and gain credibility.”
But Betty Arcidlacono, 70, of Marion, Iowa, is tossing up caucusing for Klobuchar and appreciated the senator’s more assertive tone.
“She didn’t get where she is by being a ‘yes’ person and not standing up for her own ideas. And she has a lot of good ideas, and she has a good background, which is going to influence her future ideas,” the retiree, who previously worked in the insurance industry, told the Washington Examiner after Iowa Democratic Rep. Abby Finkenauer’s first fundraiser fish fry in Cedar Rapids. “It’s going to get a little nastier, yeah, but that’s just the way it has to be. This is a fight, it’s not a dance. Everybody doesn’t get a little trophy at the end of the season for being a good sport,” she added.
