Amy Klobuchar isn't among the early Democratic candidates for 2020, but George Will writes in the Washington Post that the Minnesota senator might be her party's smartest choice. "Klobuchar is the person perhaps best equipped to send the current president packing," Will writes in the op-ed. For starters, she "satisfies the 2020 Chromosome Criterion: The Democratic nominating electorate is disproportionately female and eager to achieve what they came tantalizingly close to in 2016: a female president." But the 58-year-old Klobuchar also gets high marks from Will on her policies and politics. For example, she knows how to talk to "populations and interests that Democrats need," including farmers hit hard by trade wars.
Klobuchar also has become knowledgeable about the rising cost of prescription drugs, which could be a big issue in the 2020 race. Overall, her voting record makes her the 27th most liberal senator, a ranking that's high enough to please the left and low enough not to scare the right. "Her special strength, however, is her temperament," writes Will. Politics "requires an emotional equipoise, a blend of relaxation and concentration, stamina leavened by cheerfulness." Klobuchar has it; she laughs a lot. "If the nation wants an angry president, it can pick from the many seething Democratic aspirants, or it can keep the president it has," concludes Will. "If, however, it would like someone to lead a fatigued nation in a long exhale, it can pick a Minnesotan, at last." Click to read his full column. (More Amy Klobuchar stories.)