USA TODAY International Edition
Klobuchar braves cold to announce run for president
The wide Democratic field of 2020 presidential candidates expanded further Sunday when U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota threw her hat in the ring at an outdoor event on a freezing afternoon in Minneapolis.
Klobuchar, 58, hopes her workingclass, Midwestern background will help her seize the middle ground in a Democratic primary in which many of the candidates who have announced generally appeal to the party’s more liberal wing.
As the snow came down and the temperatures hovered in the high teens, Klobuchar announced:
“I stand before you as the granddaughter of an iron ore miner, as the daughter of a teacher and a newspaperman, as the first woman elected to the United States Senate from the state of Minnesota, to announce my candidacy for president of the United States.”
Klobuchar delivered her remarks at Boom Island Park. According to The Weather Channel, it was 16 degrees Fahrenheit around the time she made her announcement, but it felt like 7 degrees with the wind chill.
“I don’t come from money,” Klobuchar said. “But what I do have is this: I have grit. I have family. I have friends. I have neighbors. I have all of you who are willing to come out in the middle of the winter, all of you who took the time to watch us today from home, all of you who are willing to stand up and say people matter.”
In 2006, Klobuchar became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Minnesota. Last year, she won a third term with 60 percent of the vote.
She is banking on that success carrying over into other Midwestern states to give her an edge in the Iowa caucuses. If she can secure the nomination, she hopes she will get a boost in states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, which were key to Trump’s upset over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“I think you want voices from places where Donald Trump did very well,” she told CNN in December. “My state, for instance, he almost won in 2016, and we came roaring back in 2018.”
Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, gained national attention during the contentious confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In one exchange during which Klobuchar asked Kavanaugh about his alcohol consumption, she spoke of her alcoholic father.
She voted against Kavanaugh, as well as Justice Neil Gorsuch. She opposed most of Trump’s Cabinet nominees, including Jeff Sessions, Betsy DeVos, Steven Mnuchin, Rick Perry and Ben Carson. But, according to FiveThirtyEight, she voted with Trump 31.5 percent of the time, the highest among the five Democratic senators running in the primary.
One hurdle for the Minnesota Democrat is a BuzzFeed News report based on interviews with former staffers who accused her of running “a workplace controlled by fear, anger and shame.” The article said the senator “regularly berated” her staff over minor mistakes.