Klobuchar rouses local delegates

DENVER - Once a keynote speaker, always a keynote speaker. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar brought the crowd to its feet this morning multiple times this morning as she gave a cheerleading speech to the Washington delegation, reminiscing about her turn as the keynote speaker at the Washington State Democratic Party Convention last June, when she was a last minute replacement for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

Kerry had to attend a funeral for a fallen Massachusetts National Guardsman, but Kobluchar didn't have nearly as good of a reason to miss out, though she was tempted. After all, it was her daughter's birthday. But Klobuchar decided it was more important to talk to Washingtonians, so instead it was her husband who was charged with administering a tea party for a dozen 13-year old girls.

Klobuchar then turned her time to the presidential election, stating how much she liked Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer's speech from the night before, and how it spoke to Barack Obama's appeal.

 "It's about the farmers that I saw in a farm fest," she said of the excitement Obama was building in Minnesota. "It's about the veterans that came up to me at a veterans hall. It's about young people all over this country that have been energized like they've never been before."

That type of grassroots support was what Klobuchar suggested this week's convention was all about. That and defining the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama on oil, Iraq, and renewable energy issues.

"It reminds me of that cable tv channel, TV Land," she said of McCain's candidacy, with shows like The Brady Bunch, Leave it to Beaver, and Gilligan's Island.

"We're not going to get off the island," she said of more Bush-like policies. "We have got to get off the island."

That line got the entire hall standing and applauding as loud as they have all week.

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