If you go to over 85 pancake breakfasts over the course of a year, one of two things is likely true: either you really love pancakes, or you are running for something. I know this because I was discussing said four score and five flapjack repasts with U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar on a bus in 2008.

It was the autumn of that election year, a year that feels simultaneously far off and just yesterday. I was the Democratic congressional candidate for Colorado’s 5th District and thus I found myself invited to ride on one of several “Obama buses” employed by the presidential campaign to drive important surrogates for Obama around certain key states. As Colorado was seen by many to be the key swing state of 2008, there were lots of people working very hard for his election here, and the campaign sometimes put said folks on buses to drive around the state in hopes of rallying support. As a courtesy, the Obama campaign invited me to hop on the bus after a rally in Cañon City, for the drive over to Salida where another rally would be held. I found myself in the company of former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer and the then-new senator from Minnesota, a very nice person named Amy Klobuchar. 

Now, long before I was a congressional candidate, I was a career Air Force officer and teacher of political science at the Air Force Academy. I had taught courses on the three branches of government, and as a politics nerd, it was fascinating to sit for a couple of hours and talk about the actual mechanics of campaigns and governance with a couple of folks who had actually won their elections and were part of the process. It was in that discussion with Klobuchar that I learned about the pancake breakfasts. Each state, not surprisingly, has different campaign traditions, and apparently in Minnesota putting on a pancake breakfast for the candidates is customary. Given the then-proximity to President George W. Bush’s time in office, I wonder if you had to ask for “freedom toast” if you didn’t want pancakes.

Anyway, she told me to call her Amy, and I called her Senator, as I was raised right. And as we discussed a wide variety of issues and ideas, I became quite impressed with the then-freshman senator. My bus trip remains one of my fondest memories of my own quixotic campaign for office, and came to mind when I was recently asked about whom I will support now that Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet has dropped out of the presidential race.

A recent Colorado Politics story noted that even though Bennet is now gone from the campaign trail, his common sense and the dose of reality he infused into this year’s presidential contest remains in the minds of many. I see Klobuchar as cut from the same cloth as Bennet.

My column last week bemoaned my worry that Bernie Sanders could actually become the Democratic Party’s nominee, and that I am concerned we could see a repeat of 1972 all over again. And so today, I’d like to suggest that with Bennet out, there remains a cluster of candidates that can defeat President Trump in November, and I place Amy Klobuchar at the top of that short list, mostly.

I will always have warm feelings toward Joe Biden, as he was very kind to me during my own campaign, but I fear his campaign is already toast, with very poor showings in the early going, and far too many inarticulate moments when adeptness was called for. So, I think Joe is out. I like much of what Mayor Pete Buttigieg has to say, and he could surprise me, but I suspect his youth and inexperience would work against him, as would certain bigotries. 

The wild card in Democratic politics this year is the $61 billion man, Michael Bloomberg. A former Republican, Bloomberg is viable, frankly, because of one factor: his checkbook. As a true billionaire, unlike, well, you know who, Bloomberg has already demonstrated his willingness to spend whatever it takes to win. And as I’ve mentioned before, this election for me is about winning and not insisting on a perfectly pure candidate with whom I agree on everything. Heck, there was only one candidate I can think of that I agreed with on everything, and I lost big.

Bloomberg is, to put it bluntly, only viable because of Trump. If the Dems were running against a “normal” Republican, like, say, Romney, the battle would be over ideas and results. With Trump, a new normal has been set, with a bar far lower than ever before imagined. Bloomberg has lots of baggage from his time as mayor of New York City, but, again, he has billions, and I worry that in this Trumpian fake-news, alternative facts world, money may well be more important than ideas. 

My bus ride with Klobuchar convinces me that she would likely be the best candidate for the Dems to put forward in terms of ideas, beliefs, and for her vision of America. But Bloomberg is rich. Really, really, rich.

It’s a sad commentary on the state of American politics that money may need to eclipse ideas, but welcome to our brave new world. 

Pancakes anyone?

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.