In the second part of Andrew Sullivan’s weekly tri-partite diary entry, he crystalizes my concerns about Senator Klobuchar’s (D-MN) bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination:
Klobuchar, to my mind, is the better midwestern option. She is an engaging and successful politician. But there’s a reason she seemingly can’t get more traction. She just doesn’t command a room, let alone a stage. Setting aside everything else, Warren is presidential in a way that Klobuchar is not.
And so Sullivan nails the reason Klobuchar might lose a general election to Trump, and, yet, it’s an attribute of any candidate for President which is, at best, secondary, isn’t it? We take a commanding presence to be a proxy for being fit for command, when this is nothing more than bullshit: how many actors, competent at projecting the commanding presence that, say, King Richard III possessed, would you want to see as President?
Yeah, me neither.
A lot of voters, according to interviews I’ve read, have taken Trump’s manner to be that of a boss, and took that as a proxy for his future competency as President, and this, with no apologies at all to anyone, has worked out for shit. In fact, his performance makes Greta Van Susteren’s suggestion for debates that show how a candidate operates, as well as his actual view, quite alluring, even if I don’t think they’d really influence anyone. I must admit I hope I’m wrong on this count.
But Sullivan’s observation echos, far more succinctly, my own view of Klobuchar: she just hasn’t the presence to win on her own. She might win, though, by surfing the anti-Trump wave and appealing to Midwestern voters.
Or, if Trump is convicted and permanently removed from office in one of the biggest upsets of the entire American political history, and Vice President Mike Pence runs in Trump’s place, by being more interesting than dull-as-water Pence.
