Amy Klobuchar's Rocky Announcement Today

Despite Trumpanzee's racist spitballs from the sidelines, Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign launch yesterday went beautifully-- just in Lawrence, Massachusetts and then in Dover, New Hampshire. Her rally was a call to action against wealthy power brokers who "have been waging class warfare against hardworking people for decades"-- and against a political elite "bought off" and "bullied" by corporate giants, and a middle class squeezed so tight it "can barely breathe." This morning she started the day at the Veterans Memorial Building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, followed by a rally in Iowa City at the Iowa Memorial Union at the University of Iowa late this afternoon. And this evening she'll be at the Mississippi Fairgrounds in Davenport for a more intimate roundtable discussion. Tomorrow she's off to South Carolina, followed by Georgia, Nevada and California.

In a post handicapping the Iowa caucuses this morning, Tim Russo predicted she'd take 7% of the vote in the crowded field. Ouch! But, still much better than Amy Klobuchar, who he assigned 1%! "What a disgusting pig this pointless grandstanding police state-reliable Klobuchar is. Felony cover music? A crime to boycott Israel? What the living fuck. Klobuchar’s usefulness will be as an example of just how far establishment Dems will allow the correct genitalia to festoon themselves with authoritarian prostration before capital."

This morning, Politico's Elena Schneider wasn't quite as colorful in her description of Klobuchar's Iowa prospects... but she did use the word "horror" in the headline. If you're pitching yourself as "Minnesota nice," the whole shitshow gets derailed when Joe Biden's operative leak that you were brutally bullying your staff the day before the kick-off.

Biden, who has no reason to run for president other than naked ego and ultimate careerism-- and nothing whatsoever to offer America put pathetic and dangerous back to normalcy, has the most vicious operatives on the field, spreading more poison about the other Democratic candidates than everyone else combined.

The run-up to Klobuchar’s expected presidential campaign launch on Sunday has been sidetracked by former aides, speaking anonymously for fear of retribution, who described a toxic office environment including demeaning emails, thrown office supplies and requests for staff to perform personal chores for the senator. It’s a sharp departure from the public brand that Klobuchar has built to get to this moment: a pragmatic, aw-shucks Minnesotan who gets things done and wins her state by landslide margins.

Before heading off to Iowa this afternoon, she spoke in Minneapolis, with the Interstate 35 bridge over the Mississippi as the backdrop, the bridge that replaced the one that collapsed in 2007 killing 13 people. Klobuchar is very proud that she worked with Republican then-Senator Norman Coleman to get the funding, calling it an example of achieving results through bipartisan cooperation. Today she crowed "We worked across the aisle to get the federal funding and we rebuilt that I-35W bridge-- in just over a year. That's community. That's a shared story. That's ordinary people doing extraordinary things. But that sense of community is fracturing across our nation right now, worn down by the petty and vicious nature of our politics. We are all tired of the shutdowns and the putdowns, the gridlock and the grandstanding. Our nation must be governed not from chaos but from opportunity. Not by wallowing over what's wrong, but my marching inexorably toward what's right."

Most reporters, though, were more interested in the charges against her for brutalizing and abusing her staff. Her "campaign has not denied any of the specific allegations detailed in recent news stories, and Democrats in the critical first caucus state of Iowa-- where Klobuchar hopes to make a splash in a crowded 2020 field-- say the senator’s treatment of staff has the potential to sideswipe her campaign."

“It’s a very unfortunate way to start a presidential campaign,” said Jerry Crawford, a longtime Democratic operative in Iowa. “It was well-known at the insider level, but now it’s becoming well-known to the general public at the time she’s announcing, which is problematic for her politically.”

Bryce Smith, the Democratic Party chairman in Dallas County, Iowa, said “I don’t see being a hard-ass as a boss as a bad thing.” Smith noted, however, that “having to take time away from stumping on why you would be the best candidate and playing defense on what happened in her past” could be a problem for Klobuchar. “A few candidates have to do that right now,” he added.

“I doubt it will [affect voters] much,” said one national Democratic consultant, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “But does it mar her rollout and her getting support from important people, like donors and elected officials? Yes. And in the long run, that’s a problem with getting voters.”

...Klobuchar’s Senate office clearly has cycled through staff at a higher rate than most others. LegiStorm, a database service tracking the congressional workforce, found that Klobuchar had the highest staff turnover rate in the Senate from 2001 to 2016. In 2017, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) surpassed Klobuchar on the list.

Those are not the numbers Klobuchar wants to bring into focus.

...In advance of her campaign launch, Klobuchar’s record in the heartland has won attention in Washington, Minnesota and Iowa, where one Republican-turned-independent state senator pledged to bring 700,000 other no-party Iowans to caucus for Klobuchar after he heard her speak in December.

“She’s Midwestern, she’s grounded,” said David Johnson, who switched his party affiliation during the 2016 campaign and retired in 2018. “She’s not one of those bombastic politicians.”

In the months leading up to her 2020 decision, Klobuchar frequently talked about the voters “left behind” in 2016, a playbook for Democrats focused on defeating the president in the Midwestern states that he flipped into the Republican column. Klobuchar’s family biography, as the granddaughter of an Iron Range miner, could also speak to some of the white, working-class voters that Democrats hope to regain from Trump.

But Klobuchar’s path out of a primary-- dominated by flashier candidates and a left-leaning electorate-- is far from clear.

She lags behind four of her Senate colleagues in campaign cash, and she’s unlikely to be the only 2020 candidate running as a solutions-oriented Midwest whisperer. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who won reelection in a Trump state in 2018, is considering a White House campaign, and he traveled to Iowa on his “Dignity of Work” tour last week. Biden, if he ultimately jumps into the race, would also likely appeal to moderate Democrats and independents.

That throng of other options in every lane of the Democratic primary is what could make Klobuchar’s staff issues so challenging. It “steps on the story she is trying to tell,” said Doug Thornell, a national Democratic strategist.

HuffPost reported that three staffers withdrew from consideration to lead Klobuchar’s campaign, in part because of her work history with staff.

“The big danger with a story like this is that it festers and potentially undermines one of her core strengths-- that she can bring people together and that she’s got a good temperament, ‘Minnesota nice’ thing,” Thornell said. “if she picks up steam in Iowa over the next few months, that’ll help her change the narrative for her.”

Under pressure from the other candidates' actions, way-too-centrist Klobuchar endorsed the Green New Deal this week. I'm going to bet that her campaign ends when she's unable to explain it sufficiently and sell it to her dead armadillo supporters (like David Johnson). And by the way, today, Klobuchar, who has been credibly accused of things like taking off a shoe and throwing it at a staffer and-- by a 23 male intern-- of making him clean up blood on a seat, waited until after her announcement to tell the media that "Yes, I can be tough, and yes I can push people. I have high expectations for myself, I have high expectations for the people that work for me, but I have high expectations for this country." Another presidential candidate, like the Starbucks Guy and Gillibrand, who needs a thorough psychological evaluation.