Column
Amy Klobuchar Is the Blandest and I Love Her
The strange appeal of the eat-your-oatmeal campaign from 2020’s most invisible, competent candidate
I have a confession to make, though I have no idea why it should be a confession: I love Amy Klobuchar. Her blandness excites me. With so many Democratic presidential candidates banking on some intrinsic or special attribute to set themselves apart from the pack — Pete Buttigieg is young and gay, Cory Booker is a black former Rhodes Scholar and inner-city mayor, Julian Castro is a far-left Latino, Bernie Sanders is a socialist, Elizabeth Warren is, well, Elizabeth Warren — Klobuchar is almost exotically plain. In fact, the most uncommon thing about her might be her name, which is of Slovene origin and whose consonants bounce off the tongue deliciously. Back when I first encountered Klobuchar and could never quite remember her name, I took to calling her Amy Klondike bar, which is even more delicious.
Like the classic ice cream treat, Klobuchar’s specialness lies in her unspecialness. If she were portrayed in a movie it would be by an actress like Sandra Bullock, who has a way of tweaking ordinariness so that it can sustain your interest without ever graduating to extraordinariness. If she were an ’80s band, she would be Foreigner, that…
