On ABC’s “This Week,” the Minnesota senator said she needs more people to “get to know her,” adding that she has gotten “high scores in all of my elections with the Hispanic and African American communities in my state — that is a start.”
Klobuchar contrasted herself with 2020 rival Mike Bloomberg, who by late January had spent $248 million on political advertising. The latest Quinnipiac poll found black support for Bloomberg surging to 22 percent.
“My name identification in states outside of the early few states was not that high simply because I didn’t have the money, like Bloomberg, to run more ads during your show than I am on being interviewed on your show. I get that,” Klobuchar said.
She continued, “Now, we’re finally able — finally — to run ads in Nevada, to run ads in South Carolina and beyond. That is a big difference.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Chuck Todd posed the question point blank.
“You have to win someplace. And it can’t just be in Minnesota. We know that will be an opportunity for you. Where are you going to win by Super Tuesday?”
“There are so many states out there, I’m not going to list them all for you,” Klobuchar answered. “I don’t know which state I’ll win, but I’ll do better than anyone imagined.”
Klobuchar’s campaign has set up teams in every Super Tuesday state and, in just over a week since the New Hampshire debate, raised $12 million online. That’s more than the $11.4 million Klobuchar raised in the last three months of 2019 — her strongest fundraising quarter.
And, she received the endorsement from the Las Vegas Sun. A Nevada poll had Klobuchar with double digit support, tied at fifth with former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 10 percent.
The senator said Sunday she wants to emphasize her record on equal opportunity, on voting rights bills and against gerrymandering. But in recent days, she has had to answer for her record as a prosecutor in Minnesota.
Klobuchar served as Hennepin County’s top attorney from 1999 until she entered the U.S. Senate in 2007. One of her cases involved Myon Burrell, who was 16 when he was arrested for the death of a black girl who was killed by a bullet while doing homework at her kitchen table. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison; Klobuchar has cited the case as an example of how she helped crime victims find justice.
But an Associated Press investigation revealed no gun, fingerprints or DNA were recovered and there were questionable police tactics used in the case.
“When anything new comes in that puts into doubt any conviction, no matter when it is, must be reviewed,” Klobuchar said on ABC. “My response to this case is this, it must be reviewed immediately and brought forward.”
Todd asked the senator on NBC: “Do you look back at your career and think, boy, there are some things, if I knew then what I know now maybe I’d be a different prosecutor, maybe I wouldn’t have put so much trust always in law enforcement and what they say on the witness stand versus what somebody else says? Do you at all acknowledge that maybe your record deserves a different look?”
“Well, of course what we know now was not the same as what we knew then. And I have always been an advocate for criminal justice reform. That was a tough job,” Klobuchar said.
“But we know there is systematic racism in the criminal justice system,” she added. The senator pointed to her work pushing for videotaped interrogations, limiting racial bias in the eyewitness identification process and lowering African-American incarceration rates by 12 percent as an attorney.
Klobuchar is also under scrutiny for her immigration record as she heads into the Nevada caucuses next week, with roughly 19 percent of the population there having been born outside the U.S.
In an interview with Telemundo’s Guadalupe Venegas on Thursday, Klobuchar wasn’t able to name the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
„How do you plan to win the support of the Hispanic vote in Nevada and the whole Southwest if you can’t tell me who the president of Mexico is, who is our neighbor to the south and has a direct impact on our communities?“ Venegas said.
„Because my heart is with the people of this country and my heart is with immigrants and I have a strong track record of working with immigrants, she said.“
The candidate has reversed her position that English should be the national language. She was one of 17 Democrats to support a 2007 amendment that would have overturned President Bill Clinton’s executive order requiring federal agencies to provide materials in languages other than English. While the amendment passed, the larger immigration bill it was attached to died.
“That was an early vote on English as the official language. A number of other Democrats voted the same way, and actually nearly all Democrats eventually voted for it. It was in the base bill,” Klobuchar said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
But: “I know that’s not a good idea because it would be hard to translate brochures and voting materials and the like.”
Klobuchar also said the deportations under the Obama administration of people without criminal records “went way too far,“ and comprehensive immigration reform is needed.
Source: politico.com
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