BY TONY BOUZA
(Publisher’s Note: I vigorously disagree with Tony Bouza’s analysis and my rebuttal follows.)
The election for President begins in 2019—and that ain’t an optic. Trump—if he can survive to run (which I doubt) has no chance. Zilch.
So, who should the Dems nominate?
My secret choice is the Lincolnesque Sherrod Brown, but it ain’t gonna happen. My second choice is our own—Amy Klobuchar—whom I studied carefully during her stint as county attorney. She was very good in that tricky prosecutorial post. She exercised good judgment (really rare there) and did not blanch at tough decisions (even rarer). She was a truly effective public servant.
Klobuchar has been a notably good senator and she possesses a quality I tend to perhaps overprize in public servants—character. There is so little of it in today’s public life.
The irresistible temptation of geezerhood is to exude cheap, unsought and unwanted advice. I apologize for it even as I wallow in it and accept its rejection.
Klobuchar needs to run as an antidote to Trump and as a repudiation of Clinton without lapsing into the unelectable temptations of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom are truly wonderful but unelectable.
The core of Trump’s support is composed of rednecks, racists, bikers, anti-semites, barely high schoolers, crypto-fascists and assorted “deplorables,” to quote Hillary. They are not going to be won over, but they can be written off. We’re talking about 30% or so of a vanishing white species. Presidents are elected by 26% of eligible voters.
America is a great country—free, generous, altruistic and democratic. Let’s not be bored by these truths. Our character as a nation matters.
Run, Amy, run.
