What Makes Amy Klobuchar So Tough? It Starts With a Painful Past

Anyone who is surprised that Amy Klobuchar (pictured above with supporters in Iowa) has outlasted high-profile contenders like Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination probably has forgotten a key moment in the Senate last year. Klobuchar, the senior U.S. senator from Minnesota, showed her grit during the Judiciary Committee's hearing on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

When it was Senator Klobuchar’s turn to question the then-Federal Appeals Court judge about the accusations by Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in 1982, she asked him, after mentioning her father’s struggles with alcohol, if he’d ever blacked out from drinking. “I don’t know—have you?” Kavanaugh asked with a sneer. Klobuchar, 59, was clearly rattled, but retained her poise, saying simply, “I have no drinking problem, Judge.”