WASHINGTON, D.C. – My source had obviously been drinking for some time before I arrived.

His eyes sat like a pair of bottom-of-the-jar olives in a plate of oil and vinegar.

“I got two words for you,” he said as I grabbed the stool next to him and stared straight ahead.

I waited.

“Amy Klobuchar.”

I waited some more, trying to get the attention of the barkeep.

“Does that name mean anything to you?” the source said finally.

“Source.”

I considered the word at the edge of scorn.

This session was going to be this guy, admittedly a friend, whom I hadn’t seen for some time, plying the presidential virtues of Senator Amy Klobuchar, apparently as his version of a bicycle kick on the state he fled.

He had lived in Minnesota.

He knew Klobuchar.

Loved her.

“I’m telling you, this is real,” he insisted.

Of course, U.S. Senator Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) also a presidential candidate, vying to be the party’s nominee to take on President Donald J. Trump.

Out of New Jersey

“Amy…”

It was Amy now.

“Amy’s message can click in those states the Democrats need to win,” the source argued. “She’s pragmatic and pro-labor.

“Joe Biden’s too old, he’s come and gone, and he would be the only other person the Democrats have to score in those rustbelt areas Trump tore away from Hillary [Clinton]: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan,” the source added.

I played along.

“But the stories about her mistreating staff…”

“Proves she’s tough,” the source interjected.

I tried to change the subject.

“How are things?”

“Great,” said the source, in a tone of unquivering peace and satisfaction, acknowledging that his life was on a steady upswing ever since he had left – and I waited for the words to hit with a vengeance, which they did, spit-tinged but then why wouldn’t they  – New Jersey.