Like it or not, political pundits got the 2016 speculation going literally moments after networks began calling Tuesday night’s election for President Obama.

And one name that they keep putting on the list of potential Democratic presidential candidates is a familiar one — Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who won the support of 65 percent of Minnesota voters on Tuesday.

Now, the be clear, Klobuchar hasn’t done too much to indicate she’s interested in making a run — campaigning for a House candidate in Iowa does not necessarily make you a presidential aspirant — and she has flatly said she’s not interested in the past. It’s well too early to begin seriously assessing who might run for president in four years, but a popular U.S Senator who cruised to re-election might start thinking about jumping into the ring, no?

So Chris Matthews asked Klobuchar about it when she appeared on Hardball Thursday night. Toward the end of an interview, he asked bluntly, “Do you want to be president?”

Klobuchar laughed and said, “I love being the Senator from Minnesota, that’s what I want to do. We have a great state, you should come and visit, Land of 10,000 Lakes.”

Matthews pressed her to give a yes or no answer, and she did.

“That was a no,” she said. “I couldn’t be clearer. I love being the Senator from Minnesota, that’s my job.”

So that’s that, for now. Only 1,460 days until Election Day.

Klobuchar was on Hardball to talk about the gender make-up of the new Congress — there will be 20 women in U.S. Senate when it convenes next year, a record figure. Klobuchar said the chamber’s women have dinner together every other month and are focused on working together congenially, something Klobuchar said will need to happen more often after Tuesday’s status quo election.

“The American public wanted to see more problem solvers after this incredibly polarizing election,” she said. “Women tend to be problem solvers, and I think that helped us, as well as some of the messages we were seeing on the other side.”

Watch it here:

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Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry

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1 Comment

  1. Give Us A Break

    While I get that the punditocracy enjoys nothing more hearing the sound of its own collective chattering, can they at least give us a break and cut out the 2016 blathering until perhaps in early 2015? There is another election cycle before then. I’d rather sit in a room full of clacking teeth toys than listen to that right about now.

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