DFL backs Klobuchar as she girds for battle

ROCHESTER - To the strains of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run," Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar took the DFL endorsement for U.S. Senate after one ballot at the state DFL convention on Friday, promising "real change in Washington."

Warning of a bruising fight ahead with GOP endorsee Mark Kennedy in one of the tightest races in the country, Klobuchar said Republicans "will throw everything at us. They'll Swift Boat us. They'll smear us." But, she said, "the truth is on our side."

Klobuchar was joined on stage at the Mayo Civic Center by her husband and 10-year-old daughter as she promised to reach out to moderate Republicans and independents.

"We know the people of this state don't want to follow the Lone Star," she said, referring to President Bush's home state of Texas.

"They want to follow the North Star."

In a signal of the bare-knuckle brawl ahead, both Republican Party chairman Ron Carey and DFL primary rival Ford Bell made personal appearances outside the center to denounce Klobuchar.

Carey called Klobuchar the candidate of "bigger government, higher taxes and retreat from the war on terror."

Much as DFLers are trying to link Kennedy to President Bush, Republicans tried to link Klobuchar to retiring incumbent DFLer Mark Dayton, whom Klobuchar once described as among her heroes.

"If you like Mark Dayton you'll absolutely love Amy Klobuchar," Carey said.

Bell, a veterinarian, has proved a surprisingly dogged DFL opponent; on Friday he took both Klobuchar and Kennedy to task, calling them "two candidates who are captives of their parties, controlled by Washington."

Bell has repeatedly urged Klobuchar to adopt his position on the war and call for immediate troop withdrawal, and that position found some sympathy with delegates, 20 percent of whom voted for no endorsement on the first ballot as a symbolic protest of Klobuchar's position.

Klobuchar, who still netted 79 percent of the convention's more than 1,000 delegates, refused to change her position.

"I've opposed the war from the beginning," she said, "but defunding the war with our troops still in the field is not responsible." Klobuchar has called for significant troop withdrawals by the end of the year.

Endorsement never in doubt

In a forceful acceptance speech, Klobuchar said that leaders in Washington "are not only fiscally bankrupt, they're morally bankrupt. They give tax breaks to billionaires, but deny our troops the equipment they need and bullet-proof vests for our cops. I'd rather equip our first responders and soldiers and give tax relief to the many, not the few."

Klobuchar gave the crowd a flavor for her upbringing, telling them of her grandfather who mined coal in Ely, her newspaperman father, Jim Klobuchar, a retired Star Tribune columnist, and her mother, Rose, a retired teacher.

Her father, she said, "taught me that with faith in God we can overcome our biggest challenges. He taught me to stand up for myself, be leery of those with too much power, to take on the tough fights and follow my dreams."

As Hennepin County's chief prosecutor, she said, "I do my job without fear or favor. We even put a judge in prison. This guy was a Democrat and so was I, but that didn't matter. My job is to hold people accountable, no matter who they are, no matter who they know."

Klobuchar's endorsement was never in doubt. As soon as her name was placed in nomination, the room erupted in cheers and a sea of blue-and-white placards that read "Klobuchar for change."

Two other minor candidates were nominated from the floor, Phil Ratte and Charley Underwood, who used his speech to rouse delegates against the war.

To scattered boos but more cheers, Underwood challenged Klobuchar to "declare from her own mouth that she won't vote for this war anymore." He implored delegates to withhold their votes until she had a strategy in line with anti-war delegates who called themselves "Precincts for Peace."

Race called a tossup

Klobuchar will now have to gear up for a primary race, and if she wins there, a tough general election contest against a well-funded opponent with a history of winning against the odds.

Klobuchar beat the odds herself to emerge as the endorsed candidate. A two-time county attorney, she has never run in a statewide race yet managed to catch the eye of national party types and beat back formidable challengers Patty Wetterling, who retreated to the Sixth District congressional race, real estate developer Kelly Doran and attorney Mike Ciresi.

Bell gained some support but never got enough traction to wrest the endorsement from Klobuchar.

She and Republican endorsee Mark Kennedy, who represents the Sixth Congressional District, have been running neck and neck for months in various polls. That is an indication, political observers say, of how split Minnesota is and how intense the fight will be.

Minnesota's is one of only three open Democratic Senate seats in the country and the only one still rated as a tossup.

Jennifer Duffy, analyst for the Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C., called the seat "the Republicans' biggest opportunity and Democrats' biggest weakness."

But with Iron Range roots, strong name recognition in the state's most populous and wealthiest county and the backing of top Democrats nationally, Klobuchar predicted victory Friday and said that having a primary will not change her strategy.

"I'm focused on November," she said. "I'm focused on Mark Kennedy."

Patricia Lopez • 651-222-1288