Luke Rundell
Staff Reporter

During a snowstorm on a February day in Northeast Minneapolis, many bundled up to see (for some long-awaited) Amy Klobuchar announced her presidency. Dressed in a yellow coat, she stood outside and spoke for 25 minutes straight, and by the end of the speech, she was covered head to toe in snow. Klobuchar didn’t end her speech because she has drenched in snow, she ended it because her speech was over.

“We don’t let a little cold stop us, do we? are you guys even cold? When I said that elected leaders should go not just where it’s comfortable, but also where it’s uncomfortable, I meant it!” Senator Amy Klobuchar said.

Over the entirety of the speech, she covered the main messages of her campaign with a centrist-left standing, and with some jabs at President Trump. On the first day of her presidency, she announced that the U.S. would rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. She then said that in the first 100 days of her presidency she would reinstate the clean power rules and gas mileage standards and put forth sweeping legislation to invest in green jobs and infrastructure.

“Let me be blunt: for too long leaders in Washington have sat on the sidelines while others try to figure out what to do about our changing economy and its impact on our lives, what to do about the disruptive nature of new technologies, income inequality, the political and geographic divides, the changing climate, the tumult in our world. For a moment, let’s stop seeing those obstacles as obstacles on our path. Let’s see those obstacles as our path.” Klobuchar said.

She also addressed her centrist-left stance on Gun Control, while still trying to appeal to the gun owners:
“That’s why, in a state where we all value hunting and fishing and the great outdoors, I’m not afraid to join the vast majority of Americans, including many gun owners, to stand up to the gun lobby and put universal background checks and common sense gun legislation into law. It’s time, America!” Klobuchar said.

The thing that differentiates her from other candidates, is that she made a different promise. She promised to put some “digital rules” down when it comes to privacy and big tech companies and to connect every U.S. household to the internet by 2022 if she is elected.

She ended her announcement speech with a message of unity for the country, and to stop the hate and fear.
“And one last obstacle which we must overcome to move forward together. Stop the fear-mongering and stop the hate. We may come from different places. We may pray in different ways. We may look different. And love different. But all live in the same country of shared dreams.” Klobuchar said.

Since her announcement speech, there have been several accounts by previous staffers of Klobuchar, and in internal emails of her “management style”. She has consistently one of the highest staff turnover in the Senate. Interviews with 20 staffers suggested that she can be paranoid, abusive, and volatile. Buzzfeed and the New York Times have both run stories suggesting that she once “threw a binder in the air, hitting an innocent bystander” and “ate a salad with a hair comb, and made a staffer who lost her fork to wipe the hair comb off”.

“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,” Klobuchar said.

Mr. Herring is a Political Science and American History teacher at Orono High School. He has previously said that Amy Klobuchar would run last year.

“First of all she has to get traction in Iowa, if she gets traction then she can bring it to New Hampshire then pull a surprise out of it. If she doesn’t get anything out of either place, I don’t think it’s going to happen for her,  I think she’ll make a quick exit. So I’m afraid that the binder situation will become a more important issue, if and when she becomes more of a important candidate. If she remains; the recent poll has her at 3% in Iowa. If she doesn’t get those numbers up, people will forget about everything else and they will forget about her.” said Teacher David Herring

Klobuchar now joins a field of 11 other Democrats running for the upcoming 2020 election. She has already hosted a CNN town hall, like many other candidates, and the first Democratic Debate is scheduled for June.