The quote in the post title is from Amy Klobuchar, interviewed by The New Yorker about "How Democrats Can Defeat Trump in 2020."
I'm the person who once said, "Why aren't the Democratic candidates better? I'm just going to be for Amy Klobuchar," so I guess I have to read this, even though I expect it to be boring. (I've often said I like elected officials to be boring, but that doesn't mean I want to consume their boring words, and I'm also wary that a boring candidate will not make it to the position of elected official.)
Let me put the quote in context. Unboringly enough, the context is Insect Inferno.
Klobuchar was asked how she (in getting reelected Senator) was able to speak to Trump voters. She says "you have to show up," and she visits all 87 counties in Minnesota every year:
One time I found myself in a business called Insect Inferno because we had run out of places to visit. It was near the Canadian border, a Trump county, and I was in this truck, and it said, on the outside of it, “Insect Inferno: we kill bedbugs with heat,” and the whole concept was they would drive around and you put mattresses in them and then they’d put the temperature up to three hundred degrees. So when I was in there they put it up to only a hundred. But, again, I thought to myself, You go not just where it’s comfortable but where it’s uncomfortable. And to me that means being there....Insect Inferno?! Have you ever heard of insect politics?
Later in the interview (after some grilling — mild grilling — about the Kavanaugh hearings), Klobuchar is asked , "On a scale of one to ten, where are you in terms of running for 2020?" Her answer:
Well, as I have said before, I am considering it, but I never rate, scale things. So I’m not going there, but I have been talking to people in my state and people around the country about it. I think that there are a lot of good people considering this, but I do think you want voices from the Midwest....The interviewer (Susan B. Glasser) observes that the 2016 election was determined by the voters of the Midwest, and Klobuchar — quite unboringly — comes out with an anecdote and a metaphor:
But I do think, on the Midwestern front, my husband is the third of six kids, and his mom, they grew up in a trailer home and... they would go out on vacation. And oftentimes when they came out of the gas station she would have them each count off to make sure they were all in the car, because my husband was always the sweet, quiet one, and she was afraid he would be left at the gas station. And the Midwest was left at the gas station, and we’re not going to let that happen again. And I think that is more than a metaphor just for the Midwest. It was a lot of middle-class voters, it was a lot of citizens that felt that they weren’t getting a fair shake in the system, that they were, like, having to ration their insulin, like a kid that died, a Minnesota restaurant manager recently was doing, they weren’t feeling like they were treated right. And I think our party and whoever is our nominee has to be able to respond to those people in a way that we weren’t doing in that last election.
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"Left at the gas station". I like the metaphor but it doesn't go far enough. It was like that quiet sweet kid that everyone bullies, including the parents.
"Rationing their insulin". That's an interesting way to justify the ACA system that hurt the middle class more than anyone else. Our problem wasn't so much that we were rationing our insulin, it's that we have to ration our health care because we can't afford the insurance that is currently the standard way of paying for it, because it got a whole lot more expensive because of ACA.
And the Midwest was left at the gas station
What is left unsaid, with the passive voice:
You gave the keys to Hillary and no one counted off.
You run as the Midwest candidate thinking you aren't repeating the mistake of the last war. Trouble is maybe you didn't identify the last mistake correctly so you end up alienating the south and the coasts and make the same mistake of the last war. Or you run as a white woman and alienate black guys and white guys and make the same mistake of the last war. Or you aren't as corrupt or as unhealthy as the last candidate and you end up not making the same mistake of the last war.
But ...seems I've been hearing this one my whole life, the middle class feeling left behind. Are the lower classes not left behind also? Or is that who we're really referring to?
No one wants to be called low class.
She's absolutely right about the middle class. Is she right in what she'll do about it? Don't know. May never know.
I wonder how she did in the Arrowhead region. I wonder if she met folks who didn’t give a shit about the insulin (“I hate the shots”) and were more concerned about their jobs.
I also wonder if her husbands name is Kevin.
Not writing off half of the country as deplorables is good. But I want to know what policies she proposes.
She's hardly the first person to observe that the Democrat party abandoned white, rural, blue collar voter in favor of a multicultural coalition based on identity politics, but she might be the first potential Dem candidate to publically coincede that that may be a problem.
Us boring and mediocre people deserve a President!
Hat tip to Roman Hruska.
She's white, right? Good luck with that.
She kept her maiden name because her father was James Klobuchar, a sportswriter and columnist for the Star Tribune, a Minneapolis newspaper. Without that last name, she'd be a nobody.
I love when the nobility try to rub elbows with the hoi polloi by showing their deplorable roots as cred. As if it's an entry into their hears and minds. Is it?
A nobody in Minnesota.
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Vote dem and you get Illinois.
Hillary Clinton didn't leave the Midwest behind in 2016, it left her. Early in the campaign I read that every time she held a rally or ran a TV ad in some midwestern states her poll numbers went down so they decided not to campaign there. Then on a Meet the Press program after the election the panel was talking about mistakes that the press made. Chuck Todd said that they failed to report the hatred of the Clintons in the Midwest.
She's a cipher with her father's name.
"I like elected officials to be boring"
Like you were cruelly neutral until you weren't.
But then, we all have our self-comforting self-deceptions.
the agony of the deplorable. What to do about them. Butter them up. AFter the election is over, you can discard them again.
I don't really understand the insulin/restaurant owner part of the story.
But it is very interesting how Obamacare was supposed to take care of all that and the Democrats just plow ahead as if the same problems need fixing.
..that they already claimed were fixed.
The Democrat party's problem is that a good part of their coalition has contempt for whites and is quite open about it. In fact, they are proud of it. If a group actively despises another group of people and holds them responsible for all the evils in the world, it makes it hard to believe that group when they say they want to address despised groups needs.
Early in the campaign I read that every time she held a rally or ran a TV ad in some midwestern states her poll numbers went down so they decided not to campaign there.
Here in Nevada they ran a commercial which was a retrospective of Hillary's speeches from her college graduation to the present, which demonstrated that she'd been a Pain in the Ass her whole life. It moved the needle in the wrong way, so they concentrated on anti-Trump ads instead.
You mean the guy who had all his primary opponents disqualified in 95, and did a similar thing in 2004, boring guy.
I'm unimpressed with her husband's family poverty.
We never took a vacation when I was a kid. Never. Not once. I didn't realize it until I was much older, because you don't miss what you never had.
It's like summer camp. If it wasn't for the Allen Sherman song "Camp Granada" I would've never known such a thing even existed.
We weren't poor. We didn't think of ourselves as poor. But my folks had to work and there was no money for a vacation.
Amy says: a lot of citizens that felt that they weren’t getting a fair shake in the system, that they were, like, having to ration their insulin, like a kid that died, a Minnesota restaurant manager recently was doing, they weren’t feeling like they were treated right. And I think our party and whoever is our nominee has to be able to respond to those people in a way that we weren’t doing in that last election.
Weeelllll. Acting like you feel one way. Responding in a way to people's pain, despair and pleas for help. Isn't the same as actual action.
Acting is all well and good. Give her an Oscar. The problem is that "they" (politicians in general and Democrats in particular) talk and act one way and when they get elected to do nothing or worse...the opposite.
Besides the fact the the loudest voices in the Democrat party cut no slack in their outright hatred of the deplorable people...the rest of the Dumocrats just mouth platitudes.
They are not believable.
And I think our party and whoever is our nominee has to be able to respond to those people in a way that we weren’t doing in that last election.
Opening the borders and letting the third world in to take the jobs of framers, roofers, pavers, masons, painters, cooks, cleaners, landscapers, you know, your FORMER constituents? The ones that got tired of your patronizing B.S. and voted for Trump?
You realize that Fentanyl is now the leading cause of overdose deaths? And 80% of the Fentanyl in this country is coming from China, funneled over the Mexican border by the drug cartels? How are you going to win back the hearts and minds of the parents who's kids died of a Fentanyl overdose, when you don't want to close the pipeline of the drugs that killed their kids by putting up a wall?
Are midwestern voters like the sweet, quiet husband? People we'd want to be around if we gave it some thought, but we often overlook?
Or is being around midwestern voters more like being forced to sit in the back of a bedbug-killing truck with the temperature turned up to 100 degrees?
Or is being around midwestern voters more like hanging around with Deplorables your 2016 presidential candidate tried very hard and on purpose to leave behind at the gas station but now you think it would have been a good idea to have put them in the car with you, even if that's like being in a bedbug-killing very hot and awful truck, so you're going back to the gas station to see if you can talk them into getting in the car [bedbug-killing truck] with you?
I'm also not sure where the insulin shortage comes in.
What is the difference between her and Harris, or that Indian lady from Mass. Or Ryan for that matter. They are all interested in making money, for themselves and for their friends. In very simple terms, they are all Cloud people, who are better, smarter, and more 'expert' at everything. Certainly more so than the Dirt people. Trump is just a small taste of the rage that exists in this country. No matter who is elected next, none of this is going to end well. But it is amusing to watch politicians and 'experts' who think they can control what is coming.
2016 was not a mistake. 2016 was just following the Dem strategy of leaving white and male voters behind to concentrate on Latinos and women.
Unfortunately their candidate didn't appeal to black voters like Obama did or it would have all worked out for them.
You can't blame the nation's problems on white privilege and still appeal to the (shrinking) middle class. Ask Bernie Sanders what happened when he didn't want to make his campaign about Black Lives Matter.
There is a better chance of MN going for Trump in 2020 than Klobuchar being the Dem's nominee.
"How are you going to win back the hearts and minds of the parents who's kids died of a Fentanyl overdose, when you don't want to close the pipeline of the drugs that killed their kids by putting up a wall?"
Call them racist.
Weeelllll. Acting like you feel one way. Responding in a way to people's pain, despair and pleas for help. Isn't the same as actual action.
Look how fast the Never-Pelosi's turned on that promise. Watch how those claiming to be an independent vote hew to the party position, time and again.
Consider who was the purveyor of hillbilly heroin, Purdue who went to the supreme court and said it was non addictive, Eric holder a partner in Covington and Burlington where did he end up?
Typical boring, cautious, non-substantive pabulum from a politician ingrained with the unwillingness to state specifics with authenticity. Every phrase Althouse quotes is an avoidance of offering prescriptions of what and how, lest the deplorables get a hint that our railroading is being well planned behind Democrat walls. She ought to come to our one-party socialist state of California, where the politicians tell you how they will enslave you, and the citizenry says, "right on"!
I saw her during the Kavanaugh hearings. I watched her for several minutes and didn't hate her. She's got a leg up on the other Dems.
When I got to the insulin bit I chuckled mirthlessly. The Demos exit polling obviously tells them they've got the whip hand on the health care thing so they're going to flog it mercilessly. And the Repubs have only themselves to blame: eight years of repeal/replace baying and then nada. I was genuinely shocked that they didn't have a whole plan think tank prepped and ready to ram through the instant they took all the marbles. One might almost think that the Republican Congress critters don't actually like having the majority: their voters expect them to do something other than hang out in nice restaurants, go on TV, and feel important.
Generic democrat says generic democrat things.
She's got a leg up on the other Dems.
Well, she's not as much of a screaming asshole as some of the other contenders. But she has found her niche, and should probably stay there.
Amy K. Is plain vanilla. She embodies the Minnesota nice ethos, whereby the speaker tries not to stand out from the crowd or say anything
Controversial. She avoids saying anything even remotely assertive or controversial. She is beyond boring. She’ s invisble.
Her motto seems to be something like “never make waves.”
I can’t imagine her negotiating with the Russians or Chinese.
Generic democrat says generic democrat things.
So maybe she's the unnamed, generic Democrat the 55% say they will vote for instead of Trump?
sounds like Minnesotans are actually Canadian
The MidWest didn't get left at the gas station. The midWest got beaten with a coathanger, tied to the bumper and dragged. And the only plan this lying HellSow has is to beat and drag it some more, for as long as it lives. She's a lying fascist from Hell's nether reaches, and she and her fellow conspirators are striving day and night to destroy this country. That D after the name stands for Destruction. But you go ahead and vote for her, she has some stupid story she cooked up that hypnotizes you like a chalk line stones a turkey. How can you be so dense?
I live in Minnesota. Klobuchar has a magic surname. Her father was an enormously popular writer for the Star Tribune for many years. As a senator, operationally she’s a lot like Alphonse D’Amato; if you need something small done, she can make it happen. She’s outwardly calm and pleasant in demeanor, although she is apparently hell on her staff. And the local media have always protected her. If she runs for president, she won’t be protected as much and we’ll discover who she really is.
"And I think our party and whoever is our nominee has to be able to respond to those people in a way that we weren’t doing in that last election."
Nice that she can see what's staring her in the face. Now what is her proposal to deal with it, and still survive in the modern Dem party in which you need victim cred but only some victim's cred counts for anything?
She has no chance to win the nomination of the Democratic Party.
I recall when Americans preferred governors over senators as presidential candidates. The idea was that governors actually make decisions, negotiate and perform in an executive role. Governors have a track record while back bench senators vote the party line.
Tell me again what qualifies Amy Klobuchar to be President?
She has no chance to win the nomination of the Democratic Party.
She's a perfect independent candidate. Or just run as a second Democrat.
"She avoids saying anything even remotely assertive or controversial. She is beyond boring. She’ s invisble. Her motto seems to be something like “never make waves.”
Sounds like our US Senator, Bob Casey (Compost-PA), who announced he is considering running for president in 2020. He surfaced for the first time in six years this past August. PA residents thought he was in the Witness Protection Program.
If she runs she's got a great chance to be the nominee or VP nom. Whoever wins Penn/ Michigan & Wisconsin wins the election.
It's gonna be a midwest centric election. She looks like she'll bring hotdish to the potluck. She wins huge in MN. She is boring & normal & midwestern. That's an advantage. Iowa caucus goers will like her. Biden is her biggest competition.
My predictions for Pres/VP nominees. It's way too early, but if I had to guess:
Est. 50%-80% chance: Biden/ Klobuchar Or Klobuchar/ Biden.
Est 20-50% chance: Beto/ K or K/ Beto.
Est. 10-20% chance: Klobuchar/ Harris or Harris/ Klobuchar. Lower chance but maybe Harris plus Biden or Beto as VP
Wild Card. 5-15% chance: Brown or Hickenlooper or Inslee. Low name recognition. They could be the VP or P nominee if they raise the profile.
Sanders/ Warren aren't positioned well as of now. Very low chance.
My only encounter with bedbugs was in the Midwest, a motel in the UP in the early 90s. I'd always heard the term fleabag hotel growing up, but this was my first experience with the literal truth of that phrase. Next day, crossed the boded into Wisconsin and had my first Liney.
Gallup: Americans Say No. 1 Problem is 'Government,' No. 2 is 'Immigration'
Who wins if that’s the case?
Everybody has forgotten about Hillary. How cute.
Amy Klobuchar acts like she cares about rural folks and their problems. She doesn't vote like she does, but she acts like it very believably. She is boring, because she can get reeelected forever by acting concerned and never, ever being out front in a controversy. While the sheriff and the lead investigator are in front of the cameras explaining, she'll be patting the victims on the back and saying nothing interesting.
She is a master of politics in Minnesota. It does not translate to a national stage. But if folks want to throw money at her, she will hire a person she likes to spend it (taking a 7 percent fee) on ads and polls and such. She'll pull out early, and go back to her tenured senate seat. In Minnesota, if you're a Democrat politico, you have to be caught in bed with a live boy AND a dead girl, with a haze of crack smoke and all three wearing MAGA hats. And even then the Star Tribune will report once and then drop the subject.
Brown or Hickenlooper or Inslee.
Inslee < 0.
For one, he's an idiot.
Two, he's a hard-left zealot from a state that's gone the longest without a Republican governor.
He won't bring one vote to the ticket that wasn't already there.
Hickenlooper or Inslee.
hmmm, so, a white liberal guy, from a white liberal state?
alienate minorities? Check!
alienate conservatives? Check!
alienate moderates? Check!
Either of these guys seem like they'd be Sure To Win: Massachusetts
It's going to be a young black woman (with a young black male VP).
Everybody has forgotten about Hillary. How cute.
They will be reminded.
Humperdink: Agree with you on Casey completely. Ran on his father's name. Elected on his father's name. A total invisible candidate in his own state (where I've been living since 2001).
It's too early. But if I had to put money down on at prediction? Klobuchar or Biden.
She could easily be replaced by a potted plant. Oh, and she's white.
She could easily be replaced by a potted plant.
Don't tell Weinstein.
did Amy once issue a dismissal order re: yet to be mail bomber Cesar Sayoc?
Walker had a lot more to show for his time in office and he got nowhere. Klobuchar won't be noticed for the same reason, in the same way. Plus, as many others pointed out above, she has no plan whatsoever. How is she going to bring back manufacturing if she hates capitalists and wants to grind them under? How is she going to keep energy cheap when she wants energy to be green? How is she - or anyone - going to attract Midwestern male voters under the rules of intersuck politics which identify "men" and "white" as everyone's enemy and "men, white" as the worst. One day they'll come for Trump and leave with intersuck politics. Till then, Klobuchar is vanilla in the day of the habanero.
"She has no chance to win the nomination of the Democratic Party."
Bingo. Well done, Yancey.
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