2020 Democratic Field, Take 4

The big news this week is of course the Mueller Report. My impression is that the report demonstrates multiple instances where the president obstructed justice.  The spinning of this report by Attorney General Barr was exteremely disingenuous. In a just world, Barr would resign in shame.  But that is not the world we live in.

The next big event will be hearings and the testimony of Robert Mueller (and, to a less extent, Donald McGahn) will probably determine whether or not there will be impeachment hearings. If there are hearings, then the president will probably be impeached.  Then it will be up to the senate.  I think it's very unlikely that Trump would be convicted in a senate trial but the process should go forward.

If I had to bet right now, I would say that the President will be impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate. In fact, I think the Senate might simply refuse to hold a trial at all.  That means he will most likely still be President a year from now. He will almost certainly run for re-election and if so, he will be the nominee of the Republican Party.  Now, to the Democrats and their enormous field of mostly mediocre candidates.

I. THE SPIDERSTUMBLED BLOG POWER RANKINGS.

This section is just about me. These are my ranked preferences among the likely candidates.  If their standing has changed since the first rankings, I put their number from the previous iteration of this list in parenthesis.  Bold indicates that the candidate has already announced that they are running.

Tip of the 40 ounce to Terry McCauliffe, Chris Murphy, Andrew Cuomo, Mitch Landrieu, and Andrew Steyer who decided to sit this race out since I last published my rankings.

Four That I Would be Enthused About:
1. Amy Klobuchar. 
2. Elizabeth Warren  (4)
She continues to impress me with her attention to detail and creative energy. If this race was determined purely on substantive issues, I think she would win the nomination and the election. But her poll numbers continue to disappoint and her fundraising numbers were lackluster for the first quarter. I hope she stays viable and gains some traction. She has earned it.
3. Kamala Harris  (2)
She is running a cautious race so far. I think she knows that she has the money and resume to stay viable and she wants to spend 2019 avoiding any incidents that might jeopardize that.
4. Beto O'Rourke  (3)
Also underwhelming so far. He needs to step up his game to the national stage.

Seven That I Would Be Happy With:
5. Julian Castro (14)
This is a big jump in a tremendous field. I like his temperament and presentation so far. He strikes me as someone that will benefit from the debates, in a way similar to how John Kasich moved up the Republican polls in 2016 after just barely qualifying for the main stage of the first debate. 
6. Kristin Gillibrand 
I am close to writing her off. A lot of Democrats hold her principled position on Al Franken against her, which is a shame. But a senator from New York state should be better able to raise funds and attract press. 
7. Steve Bullock (8)  No sign that he's running but I'll leave him in for now.
8. Joe Biden 
He has baggage and is a older than I think is ideal for a president, but I think his political instincts will serve him will. He has been wise to delay the announcement because he has the name recognition to allow him the luxury of sitting out the silly season. 
9. John Hickenlooper (12)
10. Jay Inslee (13)
11. Tim Ryan

Four That Mean Something Went Wrong But Okay, Sure:
12. Pete Buttigieg (18)
Became a media darling by saying yes to everything. His novelty is just about to wear off, I expect, but he'll hang around for the voting, no matter what.
13. John Delaney (Unranked)
14.  Corey Booker (17)
15. Eric Swalwell (Unranked)

Four That Well, I Won't Vote For Trump, So Fingers Crossed.
16. Seth Moulton (Unranked)
17. Andrew Yang (Unranked)
18.  Bernie Sanders (19)
19.  Wayne Messam (Unranked)

Three WHAT THE FUCK?
20. Marianne Wilamson (Unranked)
21. Mike Gravel (Unranked)
22. Tulsi Gabbard

II.  The 2020 Hourse Race.

Here is what the polling shows so far: Bernie and Biden each have about a quarter of the party ready to support them. Everyone else is stuck in single digits. Buttigieg has out performed expectations and is currently in third place in most polls.  Harris, Warren, O'Rourke, Booker and Klobuchar have yet to gain traction but they are the middle of the pack for now.  Gillibrand, Inslee, Hickenlooper and all of the House members are the bottom tier for now. Below them, there are a handful of celebrity and novelty candidates who are just running for attention.

Because the field is so large, it might be helpful to try to think of which candidates could compete for certain voters. There are countless factors that this could be broken down by but I think the #1 issue for Democrats next year will be simple-Remove Donald Trump for office. So I think it's useful to think of these "lanes" in terms of what their appeal will be in the general election. If you like, you can think of these lanes as Left, Moderate and Centrist. But I think it's more interesting to think of them in terms of what voting blocs they would appeal to in the general election if they were the nominee.

In 2016 Donald Trump exceeded Mitt Romney's 2012 vote total but just over 2 million votes. Hillary Clinton's  vote total was just 65,000 less than Barack Obama in 2012 or about 4 million less than Obama's 2008 total.

The dramatic shifts in voting patterns happened among the other candidates in the field.  The Green Party and Libertarian parties nominated, respectively, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson in 2012 and 2106. The Greens increased their vote total by just under one million votes. The Libertarians increased theirs by over 3.2 million votes. Additionally, Evan McMullin got over 700,000 votes running as right-wing independent. (The 5th place finisher in 2012 got only 120K votes.)

The 2008 Obama Coaltion was an electoral marvel. It sucked up every electoral college vote that was in play. It damn near won Missouri. It held together enough to win in 2012 but it did not hold for 2016. For the rest of the 2020 cycle my analysis will discuss these three segments of the Obama Diaspora: 1. Trump or Stayed Homes 2. Soft Libertarians 3. Protest Greens.

1. SOFT LIBERTARIANS: (3.9 Million voters)

Voters who went Libertarian (or McMullin) in 2012 but not in 2012.

These are mostly people who are right of center that could not bring themselves to vote for either Trump or Hillary. I expect that Trump has won over a fair amount of them. The Democrats would win a lot of them if they nominate a centrist like Biden, but I don't think they will turn out for Bernie or anyone they perceive as either corrupt or inexperienced.

2. TRUMP OR STAYED HOME (3.7 million voters)

Obama 2008 voters who didn't vote for Hillary in 2016.

There are two sub-demographics in this group.

A. People who were upset with George W. Bush in 2008 and gave Obama a chance. He didn't keep many of them in the fold in 2012 or 2016. Some of them will probably come back in 2020 because they don't like Donald Trump personally, although that assumes that the Dems will nominate someone that they do like. 

B. People who didn't turn out for Hillary in 2016. As discussed above Hillary nearly matched Obama's national vote total from 2012, but that was because of higher turnout in non-competitive states. For example, her combined vote totals in CA and TX exceeded Obama's 2012 haul by 1.468 million. But her combined totals in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was 698,000 less than Obama in 2012.  Some of those people switched over to Trump but more of them simply stayed home.  Whoever the Democratic nominees is, they will know that they must turn out marginal voters in those three states.

3. PROTEST GREENS (1 million voters)

Voters who voted Green in 2016 but not in 2012.

Jill Stein tripled her vote count between 2012 and 2016, from half a million votes to 1.5 million votes. Those million votes are most likely to come home to the Democratic party but it has to be acknowledged that a centrist like Biden will pick up fewer of them than Sanders or Warren will.

These are imprecise groups. There is some double counting, especially between the first two groups. But I think it's a useful matrix for categorizing the "lanes" of the 2020 Democratic Primary.  I give you our first attempt to rank the chance of each serious candidate to be the nominee, relative to others and divided by who they would most appeal to in the general election.

Tier	Protest Greens	Trump/Stayed Home	Soft Libertarian
First	Sanders	Buttiegieg	Biden
Second	Warren	Harris	Booker
Third		O'Rourke	Klobuchar
Fourth	Ryan	Castro	Gillibrand
Fifth		Inslee
Sixth		Hickenloper

Note: The Red Box is intentionally blank, because I think Ryan is less likely to be the nominee than O'Rourke or Klobuchar. For that matter, I think he's less likely than Castro or Gillibrand also. 

Here is the whole field, even the weirdos nobodies and proxy by grandchildren candidates, ranked from 1 to 22.

The Top Tier Candidates.

1. Bernie Sanders  

2. Joe Biden  

3. Pete Butigieg 

The Pack. (Someone from this group will break out of IA and NH to be a contender.)

4. Kamala Harris 

5. Corey Booker 

6. Elizabeth Warren 

7. Beto O'Rourke  

8. Amy Klobuchar 

9. Juan Castro 

Third Tier: Plausible But Flawed And/or Floundering.

10. Kristin Gillibrand 

11. Tim Ryan 

12. John Hickenlooper 

13.  Jay Inslee 

14. John Delaney.

15. Eric Swalwell 

16. Tulsi Gabbard

17. Seth Moulton

Fourth Tier: Long Shots.

18. Andrew Yang

19. Steve Bullock

20. Wayne Masson

21. Marianne Wiliamson

22. Mike Gravel

I debated leavin him off, because he's not really running. But he's indulging his grandchildren in letting them run a social media campaign in his name. What a country.

Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth by Gitta Sereny
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is a tough slog, but well worth the effort. The writing is meticulous and contains all the information that one would expect from a biography of Speer, but its purpose is both more narrow and more profound than telling the story of one life.

This book is about a man who facilitated the greatest atrocities of the last century. He alone among Hitler's inner circle owned up to being party to a henious crime. But he couldn't quite commit to living in the full truth of what he knew.

Speer was spared the noose at Nuremberg because there wasn't enough evidence to prove that he knew about the murder of six million Jews. He was sentenced to and served 20 years at Spandau for the us of slave labor on his construction projects. That leniency may have been influenced by his decison to countermand Hitler's orders to implement a scorched earth policy as the allies advanced on Berlin. That decision saved many lives and the post-war miracle of West Germany's recovery might not have happened if he didn't take those steps. But that's the second most significant storyline of Speer's life.

Sereny goes to great lengths to prove how it was almost certain that Speer knew that Jews were being murdered on an industrial scale. Speer concedes that he could have known and even should have known, but he strenously denied active knowledge of the final solution.

What's really something about the story is that Speer managed to alienate almost everyone with his stances. It's difficult for most to accept his quasi-denial of knowledge aforethought of the Holocaust. It was equally difficult for Germans of his class and generation to accept Speer's admission that he should have done more to prevent Hitler's crimes.

Although he strenously avoided condeming the German people with Hitler's crimes, he was able to acknowledge that as part of the senior leadership of Nazi Germany, he shared in the collective guilt of those crimes.

There are lots of great anecdotes about his fellow prisoners at Spandau and the unimaginable difficulties of his family. But the narrative always comes back to the myster of what Speer knew and when he knew it. And the post script puts this enormous life into very human context.



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2020 Democratic Field, Take 3

I. THE SPIDERSTUMBLED BLOG POWER RANKINGS.

This section is just about me. These are my ranked preferences among the likely candidates.  If thier standing has changed since the first rankings, I put their number from the previous iteration of this list in parenthesis.  Bold indicates that the candidate has already announced that they are running.

Tip of the 40 ounce to Sherrod Brown, who decided to sit this race out and hope for a VP call.

Five That I Would be Enthused About:
1. Amy Klobuchar. 
2. Kamala Harris  
3. Beto O'Rourke 
The reaction to his launch on liberal social media was surprisingly negative. But he has talent and he will win find his feet and be a force.
4. Elizabeth Warren  
She has put forth the most specific and substantive policy ideas so far.
5. Chris Murphy
Seems less likely to run.

Ten That I Would Be Happy With:
6. Kristin Gillibrand 
Uninspiring so far, which is why I moved her down to the second tier of my personal choices.
7. Steve Bullock (8)
8. Joe Biden (9)
10. Mitch Landrieu
11. Tim Ryan
12. John Hickenlooper
13. Jay Inslee
14. Julian Castro (Unranked)

Four That Mean Something Went Wrong But Okay, Sure:
15.  Andrew Cuomo 
16. Terry McAuliffe 
17.  Corey Booker 
18. Pete Buttigieg 
He had a good cable TV roll out on CNN and raised 600K. I still think he's running solely to raise his profile, but it's worth acknowledging that he's already done that, a bit.

Four That Well, I Won't Vote For Trump, So Fingers Crossed.
19.  Bernie Sanders (21)
20.  Tom Steyer
21. The Field of Dumb Celebrities

One WHAT THE FUCK?
22. Tulsi Gabbard.  (Unranked)

II.  The 2020 Hourse Race.

The Top Tier Candidates.

1. Bernie Sanders  16%/60%

2. Joe Biden   14%/70%

3. Kamala Harris 14%/65%

4. Elizabeth Warren 11%/60%

5. Corey Booker 6%/50%

Second Tier: The Anti-Trumps

6. Beto O'Rourke  9%/70%

7. Amy Klobuchar 9%/70% To win, you have to run. That's why she leap frogged Beto.

Third Tier: Plausible But Flawd.

8. Kristin Gillibrand 3%/57%

9. Andrew Cuomo 1%/60%

10. Terry McCauliffe 1%/60%

11. Chris Murphy 1%/65%.

Fourth Tier: Long Shots.

If Mitch Landrieu, Steve Bullock, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Tim Ryan, John Delaney  or Eric Swaell somehow get through this crowded field, then they possess political skills of formidable depth and would be the favorite to win against Trump.  

If Buttigieg, Gabbard or Some Dumb Celebrity is the nominee, Trump will probably win.

2020 Democratic Field, Take Two

The 2020 race is officially underway. Most of the major candidates have announced and have begun to hire staff. So it's time to update my power rankings.

I. THE SPIDERSTUMBLED BLOG POWER RANKINGS.

This section is just about me. These are my ranked preferences among the likely candidates.  If thier standing has changed since the first rankings, I put their number from the previous iteration of this list in parenthesis.  Bold indicates that the candidate has already announced that they are running.

But first, a quick word about two candidates that have already left this race: Los Angelas Mayor Eric Garcetti was number 15 on my first list and Starbucks billioniare of means Howard Schultz was number 21.  Gargetti merely declined to enter a crowded field. But Schultz decided to act on some terrible advice and test the waters of an independent self-financed campaign that is probably going to be remembered as the most awful abortive campaign for president of all time. Or at least for all of 2020.

Six That I Would be Enthused About:
1. Amy Klobuchar. 
I think her announcement in the Minnesota snow was great. And the stories aboout her being a demanding boss only make think she's qualified to do the job.
2. Kamala Harris (3). 
A very strong start with solid telivised appearances.
3. Beto O'Rourke (2)
He's starting to look a little not-quite ready for this race. That dental chair gimmick was dumb.
4. Elizabeth Warren 
So far, she's the most willing to throw mud back at the incumbent. I don't think that hurts her for now.
5. Chris Murphy
Seems less likely to run.
6. Kristin Gillibrand
She's running a polite and cautious race so far.   

Ten That I Would Be Happy With:
7. Sherrod Brown (10)
He's impressed me so far. Much more pragmatic than I expected him to be. I'm starting to think his appeal is broad enough to win.
8. Steve Bullock (7)
9. Joe Biden (8)
I'm slightly surprised that he hasn't announced yet but with his name recognition, he can afford to wait longer than most others.
10. Mitch Landrieu
11. Michael Blomberg
12. Tim Ryan
13. John Hickenlooper
14. Jay Inslee
15. Julian Castro (Unranked)
He was my biggest oversight in the first post. He has a decent resume and is the only Latino candidate in the field, which might give him a certain base in the primary electorate. But I think most Democrats know that they don't want to be running around Florida with "CASTRO 2020" signs next fall.
16. Eric Holder

Four That Mean Something Went Wrong But Okay, Sure:
17.  Andrew Cuomo (18)
18. Terry McAuliffe (17)
A bad fortnight for the Virginia Democratic party.
19.  Corey Booker (20)
Done well so far but I still think he's a bit of a phoney.
20. Pete Buttigieg (19)
His is a vanity campaign.

Four That Well, I Won't Vote For Trump, So Fingers Crossed.
21.  Bernie Sanders (21)
22.  Tom Steyer
He has said that he will not run, but I can see him changing his mind because she seems to think this whole enterprise is a lark.
23. The Field of Dumb Celebrities
We have an official entrant in this category! Marianne Wiliamson. She's an author and self-help guru, which is convinient, because she's goin to need plenty of self-help to get over this humiliating process.

One WHAT THE FUCK?
24. Tulsi Gabbard.  (Unranked)
I think this candidacy is absolutely nuts. She genuinely feels like an agent of chaos. And I still have not seen so much as a single Tweet supporting her run. I'm suspicious even of her good intentions. But I won't elaborate on that for now, because I'm hoping she just goes away.

II.  The 2020 Hourse Race.

This is where I handicap the race. If a candidate's place has moved, I put their previous ranking in parenthesis.  The two percentages next to each candidate stand for their chances of being the nominee and of beating Trump if they are the nominee.

There's very little movement here because nothing has happened to shift the fundamentals of the race-the Democrats are favored to win but the field for their nomination is wide open.

The Top Tier Candidates.

1. Bernie Sanders  16%/60%

2. Joe Biden   14%/70%

3. Kamala Harris 14%/65%

4. Elizabeth Warren 11%/60%

5. Corey Booker 6%/50%

Second Tier: The Anti-Trumps

6. Amy Klobuchar 9%/70% To win, you have to run. That's why she leap frogged Beto.

7. Beto O'Rourke  9%/70%

8. Sherrod Brown  9%/70%.

Third Tier: Plausible But Flawd.

9. Michael Bloomberg 3%/58%

10. Kristin Gillibrand 3%/57%

11. Eric Holder 1%/60%

12. Andrew Cuomo 1%/60%

13. Terry McCauliffe 1%/60%

14. Chris Murphy 1%/65%.

Fourth Tier: Long Shots.

If Mitch Landrieu, Steve Bullock, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Tim Ryan, John Delaney  or Eric Swaell somehow get through this crowded field, then they possess political skills of formidable depth and would be the favorite to win against Trump.  

If Buttigieg, Gabbard or Some Dumb Celebrity is the nominee, Trump will probably win.

My Mariano Rivera Story

During the first weekend of June, 2003, my Yankees came to the North Side of Chicago for the first time since the 1938 World Series. It was a tough ticket to get.  But the Friday game was delayed over an hour by rain, so I got on the Red Line and hoped for the best. I went to the Day of Game window and got lucky. Apparently some folks decided to skip the game on account of rain. I wound up with a seat in Aisle 36, ten rows behind the Yankees bullpen.

The first sight of a Yankees squad in Road Greys at Wrigley since the last year of Lou Gehrig's career began with Derek Jeter popping out of the visitor's dugout.  There was no batting practicethat day,  but the skys parted and all was clear before the first pitch. It was a lovely day for baseball after all.

The Yankees got out to a 5-0 lead early. David damn Wells hit a double! (Full disclosure-I was in line for a beer and watched that play on the TV above the right field line concession stand.)

Mariano Rivera was known to take naps during the early innings of a game. He liked to take the mound when he was at his peak-about an hour after the clubhouse boys woke him. In about the sixth inning he came out to join his bulpen mates. It didn't look like he would be needed that day, but stranger things have happened.

A little boy of about seven was sitting in the row in front of me with his dad. His dad pointed out Rivera to him and told him about what a special player he was. In between innings, the boy ran down to the famous brick wall with a small disposable camera. Mariano noticed him and smiled as the child line up his photograph.  The kid ran back to his dad and was full of excitement. "That's great," the dad said. "Maybe next innning you can get his autograph.

After the next half inning, the boy ran back down with a ball and pen in hand. Mariano saw him again, but politely explained that he wasn't allowed to sign autographs during the game.  "Come down after the last out of the game. I'll sign it then."

The score at the time was five to two. David Wells was in command of all his stuff.  But then in the bottom of the eight inning, Corey Patterson hit a solo home run to tighten up the game. Antonio Asuna came in to get the last out of the inning, and Mariano began to warm up in earnest. He might just be needed after all.

The Yankees did not score in the top of the 9th, so Joe Torre brought in his big gun for the bottom half of the inning.  Mariano was not perfect that day. He gave up two singles, but didn't allow a run. He Sop Choi struck out for the final out of the game. Final Score, Yankees 5, Cubs 3.

The Yankees dugout emptied and all the players casually slapped high fives in single-file. As the brief celebration ended, the players headed into to the clubhouse by way of the dugout.  The boy was holding out hope for an autograph. The father of this kid was trying to let his son down easy. "Look, Mr. Rivera didn't know that he would be pitching when he promised to sign your ball." The kid looked devastated. I never wanted an autograph, even as a child trying to get Don Mattingly's attention, as I wanted this kid to get Mariano Rivera's signature. But it seemed not to be.

We all watched the Yankees file towards their dugout. Except one. Mariano Rivera, instead of heading for the dugout steps, turned toward right field and slowly walked out toward the bullpen. For a second I worried that he was just going to get his jacket or sunflower sseeds. But no, he was headed straight for the little kid in Aisle 36, Row 9.

When he got out by us, he pointed right at the kid and told him to come down to the railing. Mariano took the ball, signed his name on it and flipped it back to him.  The boy ran back to his father, filled with joy.

A few grown ups started yelling for Mo to sign their stuff. He ignored them and trotted back to the dugout. More than one of the grown ups called him a name or two.  They didn't know the whole story.

I've been a Yankees fan for over 40 yers. I can recite the name and statistics of my favorite players. I have their succession memorized: first Reggie Jackson, then Graig Nettles, followed by Don Mattingly, followed by Bernie Williams, followed by Mariano Rivera and then, for one year only, Derek Jeter. After that it's a little hazy. Favorite players are less important to adults. I am only a few years younger than Mariano Rivera. But when I heard the news today that he is the first unanimously chosen member of the baseball Hall of Fame, I got choked up.

The indelible image of Mariano Rivera is him trotting through the Bronx night while "Enter Sandman" plays over The Staidum's sound system, so he could put out a proverbial fire from the mound. But my strongest memory of  him will always be him calmly walking down the right field line of the Friendly Confines with "Go Cubs Go" playing, so he could keep a promise to a kid in the stands.

The last 42 is the first 100. Congratulations, Mo.

Harpo Speaks! by Harpo Marx
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a remarkable book. It is the memoir of a second grade drop out, who eventually rubbed shoulders with the great literary figures of his day. It is also the memoir of one of the most famous movie stars of the first few decades of talkies. But he barely mentions his movies.

I am a life-long fan of the Marx Brothers. I can't really say why I didn't get around to reading this one sooner but I'm glad that I did. Unlike a lot of celebrity memoirs, Harpo does not skip the details of his youth. He writes at length about an impoversished existence on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at the close of the 19th century. He was the middle child of five boys, but spent his days in an odd solitude roaming the streets in hopes of finding adventur and maybe hustling somethin of value.

The best part of the book is when he writes about the Marx Brothers years as traveling vaudevillians. He writes about how their act came together, in fits and starts, and the various flop houses that they brothers stayed in between 1910 and their first Broadway show in 1924.

Then he becomes famous. But not, strictly speaking, a celebrity. No one recognized him out of costume and no one knew what he sounded like. But he fell in with the Algonquin Round Table and was more than content to be their listening partner. He writes with real affection for that crowd, and with reverence even for litary figures who have been mostly forgotten 90 years later.

The transition to movies and the move to Hollywood are given cursory coverage. He does not dissect Duck Soup or tell the tale of how Irving Thalberg got them over to MGM to make A Night at the Opera and a day at the Races before dying young and leaving them without a champion in the studio. He spends more time talking about his USO tours and night club engagements with his brother Chico.

He writes about the brothers in more or less inverse proportion to their celebrity. Gummo was his agent and very dear friend. He writes about Zeppo's business acumen with big brotherly pride. Chico is mostly seen as a scamp who stole from him as a kid and as an adult. But there's almost no judgment there. Groucho is really only spoken of as a wit. There's almost no sense of their bein friends, although he does mention that some combination of the five brothers ate lunch almost every day in their later years.

Harpo loves to drop names. And some of the anecdotes are a little too good to be true. But they are funny and warm. The last few chapers deal with his happy marriage and the joy he and his wife took in raising four children, all of them adopted. The passage about how they raised their children to view the act of adoption as an adventure is truly poignant.

Harpo might have written a more serious memoir where he exposed the grit of his relationships with Groucho and Chico or where he divulged the process that caused him to make Love Happy, the last Marx Brothers movie most famous for being the first Marilyn Monrore movie. Harpo not only leaves that story out, he actually seems to forget he made it! (He refers to A Night in Casablanca as the last Marx Brothers movie.)

But these are the quips of a die-hard Marxist of the Groucho variety. Anyone who loves comedy or show business or Dorothy Parker and her crowd, will get a lot out of reading this one.



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Uncovering the Dome by Amy Klobuchar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this book because I wanted to get a sense of what Amy Klobuchar's writing and thinking were like before she entered the national political stage. This book is a beefed-up version of her senior undegraduate thesis at Yale. It tells the rather dry story of how the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrdome was built by the people and government of Minnesota.

The story unfolds in a pretty straight-forward manner. The governor recognizes that the Twins and Vikings might leave for sunnier climes if they do not get a new stadium (or two) but no one wants to commit tens of millionis of public dollars to subsidize two particular private corporations. Eventually the state legislature appoints a seven person commission to study the issue and to decide where such a stadium should be built. The result was the HHH Metrodome, a functional but unloved stadium that served as home to the Twins and Vikings for 30 years.

As prose, the writing suffers a bit from the hallmarks of undergraduate research. There is a lot of exposition and the drama is light, although the future Senator does an admirable job of describing the motivations of the various pols with sympathy. The books feels like it was written by someone who already knew it was a good idea not to step on anyone's toes.

She dodges ansering the biggest question teased by the book, whether it serves the public interest to build such stadiums with tax payer money. Her pragmatic conclusion seems to imply that probably isn't, but at least these particular public servants did it in a way that was on time and under budge and that prevented the Vikings from having to change their name to something more tropical for a spot in the sunbelt.

The Metrodome was an exotic part of baseball to me as a kid. In the conclusion of the book she quotes Yankees manager Billy Martin as saying the dome should be banned from baseball. As I recall he lamented that the people of Minnesota had plastered the name of a great man on a dump such as this unattractive stadium on the edge of downtown Minneapolis.

Battlin' Billy was a lot less kind than Senator Amy Klobuchar. The book is forgetable. But I left with the impression that I hope some day a stadium in the Twin Cities is named for her too.


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