Klobuchar Dishes Deep With CT Dems

Chicago — New Haven delegates and Connecticut politicians kicked off their time at the Chicago DNC with loaded deep dish pizza — and delved deeper into how to cook up a winning campaign over slices with a Minnesotan dinner guest, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

The second floor of Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria was filled Monday afternoon with Democrats digging into penne alla vodka, cobb salad and cast iron skillets drenched with dough at a so-called ​“America’s Second Best Pizza” luncheon hosted by the New Haven Democratic Town Committee and Comptroller Sean Scanlon and Treasurer Erick Russell. 

Past and current (and hoping-for future) Connecticut U.S. senators (Chris Dodd still walks!) and representatives and state officials mingled with Connecticut delegates on their first day here for the national convention, seeking not just carb-infused sustenance but a unified message to bring back home for the fall presidential and national and state elections.

A special guest — Minnesota U.S. Sen. (and 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate) Amy Klobuchar, who cut her teeth eating New Haven pizza back in her undergraduate days — provided that energetic messaging in remarks to the packed crowd. The crew connected politically over a relatively shallow symbol of New Haven pride — thin crust ​“Ah-Beetz” — while putting their established pizza party aside to dive into deep dish.

Just as New Haven has made soft power and even political unity out of pizza, Klobuchar argued that the Democrats have, this election year, ​“done a really good job — I don’t wanna say for a change — in responding online and keeping this momentum going,” through similarly simplified memes, iconography and cultural debates. 

“They’re gonna make fun of her laugh? We’re gonna mash that up with Beyoncé music. They’re gonna make fun of coconut trees and now we’ve got coconut tree memes. We’ve got brat summer and they’ve somehow landed into cat ladies. It’s not where you wanna be,” Klobuchar riffed, prompting one of a repeated wave of laughter and cheers.

“My friend Al Franken said the problem with Democratic messaging is we have one bumper sticker: To be continued.”

Gesticulating with the laid back reassurance usually reserved for male stand-up comics, Klobuchar cracked joke after joke referencing recent headlines: ​“You have Kamala electrifying the nation and filling these arenas… She has filled arenas with over 15,000 people which has just bugged the shit out of Donald Trump. He cannot stand anything — his latest sad attempt was to say it was AI-created.”

Contrasting the visible chemistry between the Harris-Walz ticket and the GOP ticket, Kolobuchar remarked that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance are ​“ready for couples counseling.”

Then she got practical with advice for party troops returning home for the fall battle.

“We are so close to winning this,” Klobuchar said. ​“You can do anything in 80 days. You don’t have to cook: You have a microwave.”