Kate Stacy, Klobuchar’s self-labeled best friend from law school, recalls throwing a chili party and accidentally inviting too many people. Klobuchar was renting a larger place, so Stacy asked Klobuchar to relocate the party to her place on a moment’s notice. Of course, she did, Stacy recalled. Klobuchar was always up for a good time.
At the start of the race, few thought of Klobuchar as the “funny one,” let alone the fun one in the race. But Klobuchar is funny, as others have discovered. When serving with former senator Al Franken, Klobuchar’s friends recall, he used to pass jokes to her at appearances. “She didn’t need them,” Cornelius says. She had her own one-liners.
Stacy lives in San Francisco but followed the campaign to Iowa and now New Hampshire as a volunteer. She enthuses, “Now I can go back to San Francisco and work nights and weekends!” Klobuchar may have been portrayed as a fierce boss during the campaign, but these friends have stayed close to her over the years, cheered her as she staked out a political career and continued to sing her praises. They say they knew she would run for something back in law school, although the presidency was not on the radar.
It is clear they sense “something” happening in the wake of the debate. Kathy Cadigan, fresh in from carrying a plank plastered with Klobuchar signs up and down the street, says the debate was what prompted her to sign up with Klobuchar. It was Klobuchar’s closer that really got her:
“There’s an old story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and when he died, his body was put on a train and went up across America, and there was a guy standing by those tracks along with so many Americans, and he had his hat on his chest and he was sobbing, and a reporter said, ‘Sir, did you know the president?’ And the guy says, ‘No, I didn’t know the president, but he knew me. He knew me.’ I will tell you this, there is a complete lack of empathy in this guy in the White House right now. I will bring that to you.“If you have trouble stretching your paycheck to pay for that rent, I know you and I will fight for you. If you have trouble deciding if you’re going to pay for your childcare or your long-term care, I know you and I will fight for you. If you have trouble figuring out if you’re going to fill your refrigerator or fill your prescription drug, I know you and I will fight for you.”
Cadigan says, “I really think she does” know her.
Despite the contingent of strong women in the volunteer ranks, Klobuchar’s campaign has been the least focused on women’s empowerment of any of the female candidates. Her law school friends say her policies are every bit as strong as the other female candidates, but by not making her message and identity solely about being a female glass-ceiling breaker, it makes it “easier” for many men to support her. While they confirm that, early in the campaign, the volunteers were largely women (who normally predominate in volunteer ranks), as time has gone on, they have seen many men — especially older men — sign on.
In a race where the shadow of Hillary Clinton’s loss has hung over every female candidate (“Too risky!” the pundits and many voters have insisted), Klobuchar has figured out an approach that conveys her advantage in the electability department: a Midwesterner who has won in red areas of Minnesota. A politician who never lost a race. A moderate who is not going to scare off independents and gettable Republicans. In essence, Klobuchar did not try to argue with the “women aren’t electable” punditry; instead, she made electability about geography and ideology.
Klobuchar’s volunteers are not expecting a win tonight. But they are hopeful that, unlike the media, most voters have not raced to find the ultimate winner — at least not yet. As they focus on the candidates, Klobuchar, her former classmates hope, now has an opportunity to break through. Much rides on tonight’s results.
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