How appropriate! Klobuchar made chair of competitiveness and promotion

Sen. Amy Klobuchar Photo: Nancy B. Olsen

Someone probably already beat me to noting this promotion, but late last week Sen. Amy Klobuchar was named chairwoman of the Senate’s Commerce Subcommittee on Competitiveness, Innovation and Export Promotion.

It may not be Appropriations, but it’s appropriate. Any subcommittee with “competitiveness” and “promotion” in its name is clearly a better fit for the cheerfully ambitious A-Klo than her other Commerce assignment: the subcommittee on oceans, the subject of one of the killer jokes she delivered to the Washington Press Club Foundation dinner earlier this month:

I’m from Minnesota and I was placed on the subcommittee on Oceans! It’s like being from Illinois, Rahm Emmanuel, and being placed on Ethics. I finally figured it out why Harry put me on Oceans, for one reason: I can see Lake Superior from my porch.

Klobuchar’s standup humor couldn’t conceal her competitive streak:

I raised $17,000 from ex-boyfriends — true story! I know that is the record in the Senate, but in the House it’s held by Barney Frank.