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There’s a nasty fake scandal in Minnesota about Al Franken’s candidacy for Senate. Eight years ago, Franken wrote an article for Playboy, which is kind of funny and kind of obnoxious. You can read excerpts here. Franken was, for many years, an artist, who helped create the groundbreaking show Saturday Night Live. He has done huge amounts of work fundraising and supporting Democrats for more than ten years, and USO tours to support and entertain soldiers on tours in the Middle East. The jokes he told aren’t always family-friendly, but then, I’m assuming that we’re all adult enough to recognize that life isn’t always family-friendly. Writing Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them was important; when few Democrats stood up against the right and when few journalist would call Bush and the punditocracy a group of liars, Franken did. And he’s continued that track record in his campaign, smacking Norm Coleman around and refusing to condemn Moveon when they ran the Petraeus ads, unlike Amy Klobuchar, the junior Senator from Minnesota, who proudly voted to condemn 3 million Democratic activists. |
| Franken’s campaign is drawing a strong youth contingent, a widespread small dollar donor base, and looks a lot like what Obama is doing. This of course scares the Democratic political elite in the state, who are used to caution and anodyne risk-free messaging. So now, they are trying to rip Franken’s throat out, first with a fake tax scandal where he paid taxes to New York State instead of 17 other states (which he is correcting), and now with this. It looks to me like it’s coming from former Franken primary opponent Mike Ciresi’s people, and from Bush Dogs like Tim Walz. Walz in particular is pushing this story aggressively within the delegation. Progressive Keith Ellison is also unhappy with Franken, but remember, he signed a letter backing Fox News in its failed to host a Democratic Presidential debate. Despite our work, there really is little support in the Democratic Party for people willing to take chances to communicate creatively and effectively.
Democrat Rep. Betty McCollum is leading the charge against Franken.
“As a woman, a mother, a former teacher, and an elected official, I find this material completely unacceptable,” McCollum said of Franken’s piece, published in 2000 under the headline “Porn-O-Rama!”
This cycle, McCollum has received $4600 in campaign contributions from Mike Ciresi and his wife, and even more than that from Ciresi’s law firm. Ciresi dropped out of the primary after it became clear that he would not only lose to Franken, but would come in third, behind insurgent Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. Next week is the DFL convention where delegates will choose the nominee for Senate, and Franken is going to win it. He out-organized and outworked Ciresi. However, in Minnesota, there is also a primary later this year, but the primary is often a formality, as most candidates defer to the DFL convention results.
The smear campaign, spearheaded by Democratic establishment types who had been funded by Ciresi for years, is an attempt to create the space for Ciresi to get back into the race. Ciresi unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2000, losing in the primary to Mark Dayton, and he believes that had he “taken his pal John Edwards’ early advice and hired Bob Shrum”, he might have won the primary. That’s the person going after Franken right now.
Transformative progressive candidates are people who speak and communicate well. Franken’s training as an artist and a storyteller meant that he took risks, creative risks, and learned how to connect with large groups of people and entertain them. He’s very very good at it. And that’s the kind of person we need in the Senate, a smart, dedicated, aggressive Democrat that understands the modern media environment.
Democrats in Minnesota would do well to stop stabbing him in the back. Just say, eight years ago Al Franken was a professional comedian, and voters can tell the difference between jokes and Norm Coleman’s record of voting with Bush to send thousands of Americans and sink trillions of dollars into an immoral war that should never have been waged.
… Senate Guru points us to this site, just launched, the Coleman Files, on Norm Coleman.
UPDATE: It turns out Franken is in a statistical tie with Coleman. Steve Perry at Minnesota Monitor has more on the dynamics of the race. |
