I think this piece from Politico just about nails it in every way about why Sen. Klobuchar has all the electability positives that Dem voters say they want but still can’t break through the top 5.
If you guess sexism, you’d be right.
Dem voters are gun-shy over nominating another moderate woman as the candidate to beat Chump. But Amy is not Hillary.
She’s Midwest born and bred, where Chump won to get the WH. She wins big every time in a purple state, including red districts where Chump won.
She’s working class tough. She’s relatable. She’s honest and tells you how she’ll pay for things. She talks in plain language while still being a policy wonk. She doesn’t have the decades of Fox News baggage Hillary had (and that Bill contributed to).
I don’t think Chump can win being his usual rude self with Amy. She’s too much like someone we know and it wouldn’t go over well this time. And Amy will stick to his weaknesses on everything, especially his failure to deliver what he promised to Midwest voters who previously voted for Obama.
Some choice excerpts:
What I heard from the voters I talked to was mounting angst and indecision. That Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are too far to the left. That Biden is too old. That Pete Buttigieg is too young. That Tom Steyer has too much money. I heard them yearn for a candidate who was just right, squarely in the middle, in the middle of the age range, and of the political spectrum, and of the country itself. And I heard these voters, men and women, self-described moderates interested enough to at least come to watch Klobuchar, 59, praise her for her bipartisan bent and legislative success and the way she’s run this race, and then often stop short of pledging their full support. Almost every conversation I had eventually touched on her gender. And it wasn’t just “old white guys” who seemed to have doubts.
and…
“The misogyny is so thick,” Ellen McDonald, 61, a Klobuchar supporter, told me at the Cedar Rapids Ramada.
“I’m not sure if all the white males would vote for a woman,” Pat Saunders, 69, said at the community college in Fort Dodge. She told me she’s undecided, mentioning Klobuchar, and Joe Biden, too. “I’m not sure,” she added. “Those old white guys? They aren’t going to listen to a woman.”
and…
“Do you think,” I asked her, “this country is a country that would vote for a young gay man for president before it would vote for a woman of any kind?”
She answered my blunt question with a blunt answer.
“Yes.”
“Does that disappoint you?” I said.
“No,” she said. “I think that’s the way it is.”
and…
“I have won in the reddest of red districts,” she said.
In 2006, when Republican Tim Pawlenty was reelected as governor of Minnesota, Klobuchar won 58 percent of the vote. In 2012, when President Barack Obama got 53 percent of the vote in the state, Klobuchar got 65. In 2018, when Clinton won nine of the state’s 87 counties and Trump nearly took Minnesota the way he did Midwest must-wins Michigan and Wisconsin, Klobuchar won 60 percent.
“I have won big time,” she reiterated to this crowd, “every time.”
Again, check out the full story here: www.politico.com/...