Amy Klobuchar - The Senator Next Door - Book Review

Taking notes as I read the Minnesota Senator's book published in 2015.  I must admit I had never heard of her until I saw her running for the Democratic nomination for president.  She has an interesting story to tell.

Senator Klobuchar is a moderate's moderate even more so than Joe Biden.  Her record speaks for itself.  The moderate says, "Let's get things done," and she can do it.  She spent 14 years in the private section including one law firm dominated by Republicans, two terms as the county attorney that includes Minneapolis, and was overwhelming reelected to the Senate after an upset win to begin with. Slovenian ancestry.  Launched her progressive career when she was sent home after one day in the hospital with her newborn Abigail.   Impressive career.

Adopted as her mantra she is the Senator Next Door as she looks familiar like to her constituents like someone who lives next door.  P. 1

With her parents generation disaster was always just around the corner.  P. 8

Senator Klobuchar tells us that her first memory was seeing her Mother lying on their basement floor,sobbing amidst the laundry and Life magazines over hearing the news that President Kennedy had been shot.  
Her Mother was a teacher, a union member, the daughter of immigrants, and a loyal Roosevelt and Kennedy Democrat.
Eleanor Roosevelt told the story about FDR's funeral in 1945 when a man fell to the ground in grief as the funeral procession passed by down Constitution Avenue.
The stranger standing next to him asked him simply, "Did you know the President?"
"No," the grieving man answered, "I didn't know the President, but he knew me. He knew me." He knew that PresidentRoosevelt was looking out for him.
Makes me sob now.  P. 11

On her father's side she has family roots from the Balkan country of Slovenia.  Her paternal grandfather immigrated from there early in the 20th Century and settled in Minnesota.  The immigration history of Minnesota is most interesting.

Her father was a long-time journalist/writer.  He covered the hapless Minnesota Vikings, four time losers of the Super Bowl.  The father sounds like a real character.


Klobuchar means "hatmaker" in Slovene, indicating that at some point in the centuries past, my ancestors were in the haberdashery business, a risky trade back then since they called the "mad hatter" mad for a reason. Until the process was banned in the first half of the twentieth century, the mercury used to manufacture felt hats would often lead in insanity. P. 19


Her father exemplified the immigrant American view.  If you worked hard and tried your best you could get ahead in this country.  Is that immigrant mentality still with us?  P. 28

Miss Alexander, her kindergarten teacher, had the historical misfortune of telling her mother that Amy would never be a good student due to a coloring mistake.  Even in those bygone days, teachers were not always right.  P. 31

Active with the Campfire Girls.  P. 35

Father became a local celebrity but not with a TV show that competed with the Honeymooners.  P. 41

"I learned a sense of balance in high school that has served me well throughout my life.  I learned the value of trusted friends, and I learned that mixing it up with people who are very different from me makes the world a far more interesting place.  Most important, I learned the lyrics to Stairway to Heaven."  P. 54

Accepted at Yale.  P. 57

Learned from the courtroom and real world that the truth is often hard to find.  P. 70


(From Facebook)

Senator Klobuchar says that one reason she attended the Univ. of Chicago Law School, known as a conservative law school, is that she wanted to get out of her comfort zone by being exposed to different ideas and different people after graduating from Yale.  
How many of YOU think like this? Well, neither do I, but I admire people who do think this way.

Went to Univ. of Chicago Law School strictly because of financial aid.  That law school is known as conservative.  It is the home of "Law and Economics," an economic approach to understanding law led to Richard Posner.  She wanted to be somewhere where she would be taken out of her comfort zone.  Can't say that I would be personally comfortable with that idea.  She did desire to get back to the Middle West.  Perhaps she had political ambitions early on.  P. 71-72

Four classes under Cass Sunstein.  P. 74

The Univ. of Chicago is not known as  party school.  P.75

Ha!  One of her classmates was Jim Comey.  P.76

Before entering politics Klobuchar had big-time experience in corporate law.  One of her clients was the one-time telecommunications giant MCI.

Much is impressive about Senator Klobuchar, but she is polling in the single digits amongst Democrats, and will not be the nominee.

"While my early political education involved studying textbooks, interning in government offices, writing my senior-thesis-turned book, and working one-on-one with Vice President Mondale at Dorsey and Camp; Whitney, the next decade ushered in some real-world political campaigns, and, ultimately, my own run for office."  P. 107

Resurgent Democratic populism in the 90's in Minnesota with Clinton and the election of Paul Wellstone.  P. 109

"Getting things done for people."  She sounds like Senator Jones.  P. 124

"I'm here for the little fellers, not the Rockefellers."  Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone
P. 176

The Senator goes out of her way to convince the reader that she was "tough on crime" in her two terms as the attorney for Hennepin County, Minnesota.

She announced for the Senate 4/17/05 from her hometown of Plymouth, Minnesota.  P. 194

"My Mom takes Lipitor."  P. 207

After getting elected to the Senate driving to DC in late December of 2006 in the 2001 Saturn family car to Rossyln, Virginia, described as an "urban village."   P. 219

Klobuchar preaches moderation.  She gives examples of Republicans and Democrats working together, but what is she saying about the Trump's Senate trial?

"The coalition of compromises changes from issue to issue, a reflection of different Senator's and different constituencies.  But what defines those willing to cross the special interest divides and the party chasms is something you don't often see on the Sunday TV shows.  It is moderation."  P. 285-286

She touts bipartisanship in citing the passage of landmark legislation like Social Security and the Voting Rights Act but doesn't mention the lopsided Democratic legislative super majorities and the political prowess of LBJ and Franklin Roosevelt in getting those bills passed.  P. 286

She quotes David Brooks on moderation which leads me to buy his book on character.  We'll see how that book plays in my mind.  P. 286

Perhaps her message is to build coalitions and tear down walls but stand on principle when necessary.  Easier said than done.  If anything, Klobuchar comes across as too ready to compromise than stand tall on principle.  P. 291