Andy Slavitt

Opinion columnist

When I pulled up to Amy Klobuchar’s house a couple of years ago in a working-class neighborhood in an unglamorous part of Minneapolis, the first thing I thought was that I must have the wrong house. Small patch of lawn, lots of traffic, squeezed in next to her neighbors — this is not what you picture for a U.S. senator.

The second thing I noticed was that her weekend party wasn’t filled with famous people and socialites. There were people walking over from next door and down the block, lots of hugs and laughter. There were friends from the neighborhood, friends from law school, lots of friends and former staff from her time as the Hennepin County attorney, parents of her daughter’s friends and longtime friends of her husband, John. We had moved to Minnesota much more recently, but she made us feel like welcome friends.

Seeing her at home was an interesting contrast from a year or two earlier when we had lunch in the Senate dining room. I had just gotten to Washington to work on health care in the Obama administration, and although I knew other senators, Amy was the only one to send me such an invitation.

Courting, not confrontation

While we ate, as senators from both parties walked past us, Amy would lean over and tell me about bills they were working on, their areas of focus, their political concerns and, frequently, her goal of recruiting that senator as a cosponsor or supporter on something she wanted to pass. On several occasions, she would flag down a senator, introduce me, have me spend a minute on what I was doing in the Obama administration, and then gracefully move to discuss their commonality in cosponsoring a piece of legislation.

I was amazed at her depth on such a range of topics and how much homework she had clearly done on each of the issues she was discussing. And I noticed that she didn’t confront; she courted. And she didn’t court, like many do, by using flattery or persuasion; she courted by listening, talking principles and agreeing to find a next step. It was a master class in charm and diplomacy, one that had required painstaking homework.

Few people have the grace to know something and still listen to others. Our current president sometimes doesn’t seem to know much of anything at all and never seems to have the grace to keep his mouth shut. President Barack Obama did. In my experience, he knew when to listen, when to suggest, when to persuade, when to honor the person talking with his full attention and when it was time to take charge. And when he did, people listened. He didn’t get every decision right, but I was never in a room with him where he didn’t get the best options on the table.

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What would a Klobuchar presidency be like?

Klobuchar has a rare mix of “gets what it’s like in the real world” with “gets how it works to get things done.” Normally, people who go between two worlds are never quite present in either, or they become chameleons. Amy is Amy is Amy. Tough, smart, empathetic, diplomatic, willing to compromise but unwilling to bend principle. She brings a deep understanding of the toll of generational hopelessness, suffering and addiction. She passes more bills than any other senator because she believes not in empty statements but in doing the most good for people.

As she put it in Tuesday night’s debate, quoting the late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, “Politics is about improving people’s lives.”

She has some of the empathy of Obama and the get-it-done of Lyndon Johnson.

Persuading a reluctant Congress is key

I believe that after you cut through all the candidates’ plans, what gets done will amount to what a president persuades a reluctant Congress to do. Job creation, better health care, protecting the environment, revitalizing rural communities, growing the economy —these are what Klobuchar is about. But she’s also about coalition building with our allies, close communication with our Congress, and consultation with experts and political rivals to get things done.

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For all of these reasons, I have thought Amy Klobuchar would make a great president. But she wouldn’t have my support if I didn’t think she could take on Donald Trump.

It’s no easy feat to battle someone who is willing to lie about his record, name call and cheat, as he is likely to do at every opportunity. But Klobuchar has an advantage here. She, too, can talk directly to Trump voters. Her life is more like theirs than his is. It’s why she wins in areas where Democrats usually don’t. She’s unlikely to be either baited into name calling or fooled into following the narratives he spins. She will know how to hold him to account without alienating those who voted for him, as she has done winning these supporters in the past.

And doing this will be essential for her. Because Amy Klobuchar doesn’t want to simply win the presidency. She wants to unite the country again. Even if she doesn’t convert them, Trump voters will see in her someone who represents not just her own voters but them as well. She’s what America needs, at a time when Americans couldn’t need it more.

Andy Slavitt, board chair of United States of Care and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, is a former health care industry executive who ran the Affordable Care Act and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from 2015 to 2017. Follow him on Twitter: @ASlavitt