For those who think my politics are idiosyncratic I’ll not argue. I prefer that to conformity any day. So let me tell you who I have decided I want to run for President in two years. Firstly, Donald Trump. I surely don’t want him to win. I think he needs to be removed by the ballot box. Secondly, Minnesota Senator, Amy Klobuchar. I know she’s not that well known outside Minnesota. Even the Internet doesn’t seem to know about her yet. I just now got a spellcheck suggestion “chalkboard” when I typed her name. Minnesota has had a number of serious presidential contenders over the last century and one, Hubert Humphrey, came withing a week of getting elected. His campaign just didn’t last long enough. Instead, the Skip Sandman supporters of his Era gave the election to Richard Nixon.
What has led me to Klobuchar is another perfectly respectable Democratic presidential possibility, Elizabeth Warren. Warren just took the President up on his offer to give her a million dollars to take a DNA test to prove that she has native american ancestry. He infamously calls her “Pocahontas.” She did and she has some…..most likely. Now the President is backing away from his million dollar braggadocio.
What occurred to me after this is not what a jackass Trump is. That’s so obvious that I’m pretty sure most of his supporters know it. He’s just their middle finger to the goody-two-shoes of America who are more interested in saving the whales than helping Americans who are hard against it. No. what occurred to me was that Elizabeth Warren, clearly a goody-two-shoes, doesn’t have a sense of humor about herself. Like Hillary Clinton she comes across like the sixth grade class president all full of herself and earnest as the glue you had to lick to affix old time postage stamps on a postcard.
Trump has very little humor either. Oh he laughs when he belittls other people but he can’t joke about himself. That makes him a perfect foil for Saturday Night Live.
My favorite politician had much to overcome. Lincoln famously lost a lot of elections. He had a first rate mind with a second rate career. Its hard not to see his election to the Presidency against all odds in 1860 as God’s intervening to keep America’s beacon shining across the Earth. I don’t believe that of course. I’m an agnostic after all but I’ll never find fault with anyone who comes to that conclusion.
He not only told jokes on himself but he didn’t mind a little roasting. One of my favorite jibes came from his politically ambitious wife who told everyone about the time she met Lincoln at a dance. He told Mary Todd that he wanted to dance with her in the worst way. Mary Todd Lincoln love telling her listeners…… that he did!
I was not impressed the first time I saw Amy Klobuchar on public television. She was a public prosecutor at the time. However Senator Klobuchar has eclipsed her now disgraced Minnesota colleague, the former SNL comedian, Al Franken.
Like Lincoln and the best politicians she can deftly mix humor and dead earnestness. I shouldn’t be surprised. Her father was a long time columnist for the Minneapolis Tribune whose ironic contributions were heavily imbued with his Iron Range political sensibilities. In this day of self-righteous vitriol I like the idea of a President with a sense of humor about themselves. Americans have so little good reason to fight among themselves at a time when the Earth is being paved over by the forces of human industry and development. I know that’s this is a point of disagreement but really. It shouldn’t be. I think a Klobuchar Presidency might help us cool our jets.
By the way, an ad by my friend, Dana Krivogorsky, has persuaded me to vote for her for the legislature. She will be the first Republican I’ll have been able to vote for in years. I like the ad because it has absolutely nothing political about it. If the Republican Party is to heal itself like the physician, it will need more folks with an honest sense of humor back in public office.
Here’s Dana’s ad:
