Reports: Klobuchar Exiting Race

Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) plans to join South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and billionaire financier Tom Steyer in exiting the Democratic presidential race before Super Tuesday (March 3), according to various news outlets including CNN. 

But her TV ads are a gift that keeps on giving to media outlets. In a commercial break in a CNN newscast on Klobuchar's exit, there was Klobuchar talking in an ad about the kind of President she would be. 

Related: Klobuchar Proposes Aggressive Election Counter-Interference Operation

Email solicitations from the campaign were still going out midday seeking contributions to the Klobuchar candidacy, but that was also the case with the campaign of Buttigieg Sunday (March 1), even as he was dropping out. 

Klobuchar is a familiar face to media companies. The senator recently supported a bill that would re-regulate cable franchise fees, and one that would created a privacy bill of rights. She has long been a critic of media consolidation and supporter of "dig once" policies directing broadband deployments to be coordinated with road construction and improvements. 

She had also promised universal broadband access by midpoint of a Klobuchar presidency. 

Look for Klobuchar to continue to be involved in election issues, at least in pushing for her Honest Ads Act. 

The Honest Ads Act, which was proposed in the wake of that 2016 meddling and introduced two years ago in tandem with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, would create online political ad public files (Facebook has already voluntarily created one of those) and bar foreign entities from ad buys to influence elections. 

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.