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Klobuchar tells of Obama's work on ethics
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DENVER -- Sen. Amy Klobuchar addressed the Democratic Convention for about 3 1/2 minutes Monday night, recounting Barack Obama's outreach to her on ethics legislation when she was first elected to Congress.
The Minnesota Democrat's testimonial was part of a series of speeches and images projected from the convention stage where Obama is expected to become the first black person to win a major-party nomination for president.
Appearing on the first night of the convention, Klobuchar warmed up the delegates with the battle cry: "Are you tired of that subprime leadership in the White House?"
It was a line she has used before, most recently during a breakfast meeting with the Minnesota delegates at their hotel.
The Minnesota delegation, crowding behind Klobuchar's husband, John, in their seats in a back corner of the Pepsi Center, cheered the loudest.
Klobuchar, delivering lines she had tested before party officials, said in an interview that she kept her remarks brief so that she wouldn't be "cut."
She said party officials did not censor her remarks nor tell her what to say. "You practice it in front of them, so they get a sense of it," she said.
But the theme of her speech, recounting Obama's work on Senate ethics legislation, fit into the evening's focus on the Illinois senator's public career and legacy.
In Klobuchar's telling, Obama called her as her family set out on the long drive to Washington after her election in 2006. "Unlike the senator from Arizona, my family doesn't have a private jet," she said in a dig at Republican candidate John McCain.
On the road, she was eventually put on a conference call with a group of other new senators: "By the time we got to Washington, we had an ethics reform plan in place."
Following the Obama campaign's theme of change, she said, "Barack Obama has already started and he'll finish the job as president of the United States."
Klobuchar said she familiarized herself with the podium on Sunday with Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean. She said she relied on a Teleprompter, despite warnings from former Vice President Walter Mondale that they don't always work.
Klobuchar is scheduled to make a second appearance tonight with Hillary Clinton and other women senators.
Kevin Diaz • 202-408-2753
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