WaPo: Klobuchar, amid Biden VP search, scrambles to fix relations with black community

[Celerity]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/klobuchar-seeking-vp-spot-scrambles-to-fix-relations-with-black-community/2020/05/23/66157e80-9c16-11ea-ad09-8da7ec214672_story.html



Just before February's South Carolina primary, Amy Klobuchar landed a coveted chance to address African American leaders. When the black activist and journalist Roland Martin learned about it, he was outraged. Martin fired off a text to Al Sharpton, the longtime civil rights leader hosting the event: How could he offer such a valuable platform to Klobuchar, who he felt had ignored the black community and brushed off his interview requests? Sharpton let the senator from Minnesota speak, but when she was done he instructed her to talk to Martin, pointing him out from the stage. "Y'all need to talk to the black press," he told her as the audience looked on.

The unusual public scolding underlined a chief weakness in Klobuchar's current drive to be Joe Biden's running mate: her strained relations with African Americans. The tensions, rooted in part in her record as a Minneapolis-area prosecutor, hurt her presidential aspirations and have come storming back into the spotlight now that she is increasingly seen as a top candidate to join the ticket. In response, Klobuchar is urgently courting the black community. In recent weeks she has aggressively reached out to African American groups, introduced a voting rights bill, joined an NAACP town hall, worked with black leaders and granted interviews to African American journalists.

But some say it's too late to improve her standing after decades of friction. "In the next two weeks? I don't know what that would look like," said Rashad Robinson, executive director of the Color of Change, a racial justice nonprofit. As a county prosecutor, Klobuchar was too harsh toward nonwhite defendants, particularly African Americans, critics say, and as a U.S. senator she's done little to help the black community. In seriously considering Klobuchar, Biden's camp is making "a dangerous and reckless choice," said Aimee Allison, a leading activist for women of color. Biden has strong support from African American voters, but many of his allies in the black community warn him not to take it for granted. On Friday, Biden told an African American radio host during a discussion of black issues, "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black."

After a furor, the Biden campaign rejiggered a conference call with black business leaders, having the candidate personally call in to the meeting instead of just staff as planned. "Perhaps I was much too cavalier," Biden told them. "I know that the comments have come off like I was taking the African American vote for granted. But nothing could be further from the truth." The radio host — Lenard Larry McKelvey, who goes by Charlamagne Tha God on the show — told The Washington Post that Biden should definitely not pick Klobuchar, especially after Friday's remark. "I think that would be suicide for Joe Biden's campaign," he said. "If he did that, especially at this moment, after the comments that he made. . . . He would be a fool not to put a black woman as his running mate."

snip

[Mosby]

1. I like amy.

That's all I'm going to say.

[Trumpocalypse]

2. Biden will pick Klobuchar

if he wants to lose the election.

[qazplm135]

3. yeah, way too little too late

the good thing about the dustup with Charlamagne and the reaction is that hopefully this reinforces that he doesn't need to pick Klobuchar and should double down on a woman of color. Amy is not giving him Minnesota, he already has it. She's not giving him more moderates, he already has them.

What he needs to do is energize progressives and people of color. Pick a progressive woman of color. It's literally an easy button. Harris is perfect, but if folks are still butt hurt because of the debate then there are another half dozen women of color who are progressive but not far left to choose from.

This isn't rocket science.