Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is quietly gaining momentum in the race for president as rivals drop out
CLARION, Iowa - With the smell of manure hanging outside in the cold air, Amy Klobuchar walked into Timbukbru, a bar so remote that its slogan reads, "Welcome to the other middle of nowhere."
After greeting the 20 local Democrats waiting inside, the Minnesota senator started sipping a beer, cracking open peanut shells and ticking through several top issues in her campaign for president. After explaining she favored improving Obamacare over passing "Medicare For All," McKinley Bailey nodded in approval.
"That's why you're in my top three," Bailey, a 39-year-old former Iowa lawmaker, told the senator.
"Ohhhh, the ultimate compliment," Klobuchar exclaimed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "In New Hampshire, there was a guy who said I was in his top two, but he was 11 years old. That was an all-time low, but better to be in the top two, right?"
The bar erupted in laughter, but Klobuchar's joke served as only a momentary respite from an ongoing challenge for her presidential bid: converting Iowans who have her on their shortlists into committed voters.
Locking in such support has proven difficult for many candidates in the extremely fluid race, with polls showing about two-thirds of Iowans still willing to change their minds before they vote in just two months. With less money and more ground to make up than the race's leading contenders, the margin of error is particularly slim for Klobuchar if she is to survive beyond Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses on Feb. 3.
Complicating matters, Klobuchar acknowledged, is that she often finds herself in the political paradox of voters liking her but unwilling to commit because they're
