WASHINGTON – Good old-fashioned power can still dress up in white tie and tails.
That was the dress code at the 128th Gridiron Spring Dinner last weekend, where Sen. Amy Klobuchar represented the Democrats in the capital city press corps' annual celebration of power, prestige and unabashed insider exclusivity.
It was a night worthy of Downton Abbey, and not a bad venue for a scion of the Iron Range whom the New York Times called a "presidential contender." That's why you speak at these things, or get invited to speak. It's a chicken-and-egg power equation.
"I'm under no illusion here," Klobuchar said in a self-deprecating nod to her growing reputation as an up-and-coming woman on the national Democratic scene. "I know I was picked to speak tonight from a binder full of women."
Echoes of Mitt Romney! Boom!
Of course, Hillary Rodham Clinton is in that binder too, so few of Washington's elites are leafing too far into the book of future presidential contenders until the former secretary of state's intentions are sorted out.
But Klobuchar is only 52, meaning that her political horizon stretches out far beyond 2016. On this night, she was standing nervously before 650 of the most influential people in national politics, including Stillwater native Denis McDonough, President Obama's chief of staff, and one of the major reporter attractions at the dinner of roasted sea bass and cranberry bean succotash. Clearly, the stakes were enormous for Klobuchar and her GOP counterpart, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who also came to the Gridiron's dais with obvious aspirations.
It helps to be funny at these things, but it's more important not to flat-out bomb. The list of casualties from similar extracurricular outings is long: U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann and her sideways camera rebuttal to the 2011 State of the Union address; Jindal's own widely panned State of the Union response; and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's now infamous gulp of water, which Obama mocked before a knowing Gridiron audience.
