The first democratic debate Wednesday was an important chance for Senator Amy Klobuchar to introduce herself to many voters who are only just stating to pay attention the race.
How's she do? For perspective, we checked in with Dr. David Cram Helwich, Director of Forensics at the University of Minnesota. He teaches debate and argumentation at in the Department of Communicate, has done scholarly work on debates and follows the presidential ones closely.
His take: Klobuchar did well in some respects, and passed one important test in that she didn't hav any gaffes or unforced error. "I think she didn't hurt herself. I think she did fine," Helwich said.
And while some more "folksy" attempts at headline grabbing one-liners were cringe worthy, Helwich said he thought her comment that Trump is " one tweet away from going to war," that we should avoid, "doing foreign policy in our bathrobe at 5:00 in the morning," hit the mark. "I think she had the best kind of Trump zinger about not doing foreign policy by Tweet in your bathrobe," he said.
However, Helwich also said that rehotorically, Klobuchar could have done better with a direct, and even pointed question she fielded from Rachel Maddow, who asked her, "What have you done for black and Latino voters that should enthuse them about going to the polls for you if you're your party's nominee?"
Klobuchar began by talking about her work involving economic opportunity, saying, "My life and my career and my work in the Senate has been about economic opportunity," and went on to cite retirement, public schools, "jobs of the future," and despraties in healthcare and wages.
Helwich noted, however, that Klobuchar's campaign messaging has emphasized her as "pragmatic" and a lister" and she didn't connect either of those traits to specific things she had done to help voters of color.
"Her response focused on economic opportunity and the need to, provide more of those types of opportunities for everybody, which is an answer that's consistent with other things hat she's said in the campaign, but what she didn't do as effectively as I think she could have, is she didn't tie it to specific things that she's done to improve economic opportunity, which then had the effect of improving the lives of people in black communities," Helwich said. "Nor did she talk about her commitment to listening and how that informed her views on the importance of emphasizing economic policy as a way of improving conditions for black people."
He added: "She didn't connects her answer to the themes of her campaign as effectively as you could have."
Still, in Helwich view, Klobuchar managed to end on a strong note, with a closing statement that hit some of her key themes.
"Her close, on th she's pragmatic and the electability angle. I thought was really good," he said
Listen to his take on Klobuchar's performance here:
