Democrat Al Franken, an unusual candidate facing unusual challenges, is fighting to reestablish the narrative of a campaign which has been mired in talk of his past. Franken\u2019s past does not include any of the things most politicians must explain or deny: he has no shady land dealings, love children or criminal activities; but he did enjoy a long, successful career in comedic writing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And that – along with a hideously expensive, failed radio show – is it<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0That’s all there is to <\/em>Franken’s past.\u00a0 He went from “Minnesota grade school kid” to “Harvard guy” to “SNL\/comedian\/satirist” to “liberal talk show host” to “candidate”.\u00a0<\/p>\nThat is all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0This career produced reams of smart and somewhat unsmart jokes and a regretable tax reporting error that has been corrected. And that is the sum of the GOP incumbent’s campaign strategy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0What else is there to talk about<\/em>?\u00a0 He’s never voted on a bill.\u00a0 He’s never pushed for – or rejected – an earmark.\u00a0 He’s never written or passed a budget.\u00a0 He’s never been elected to catch dogs.<\/p>\nHe’s written written, joked and talked about politics.<\/p>\n
So has Aaron Brown, and for that matter yours truly (indeed, I’ve probably written more about politics than Al Franken has in six years of blogging).\u00a0<\/p>\n
What else can<\/em> Coleman address?<\/p>\nOh, by the way…<\/p>\n
\u00a0Anyone who knows even the tiniest bit about comedy knows that the moment you have to explain a joke, that joke becomes unfunny, indeed, poisonous. Which is why a rather good campaign by Franken has struggled against a relatively unpopular incumbent with eerily white teeth, Sen. Norm Coleman.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
…Mr. Brown will need to explain the teeth reference.<\/p>\n
But we digress:<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s my personal, highly anecdotal experience. If you were ever at some point far too young for your parents to let you watch Saturday Night Live<\/em>, especially in the late 1980s and \u201890s when the show took some more crass turns, and then aged to a point where there was some doubt if you were old enough so you snuck over to a friends\u2019 house to watch it, you aren\u2019t bothered by Al Franken\u2019s comedic past.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIf you didn’t start sneaking in to watch the show until the late eighties, you have\u00a0little idea who\u00a0Al Franken was.\u00a0 I started sneaking downstairs to watch the show when Chevy Chase still hosted\u00a0Weekend\u00a0Update<\/em>.\u00a0 And Franken was everywhere on the show back then.\u00a0 So no, Franken’s comedic past doesn’t bother me (although\u00a0given the number of droughts SNL has suffered through while Franken was writing for the show, it\u00a0doesn’t exactly turn my comedic crank, either). \u00a0<\/p>\nIn fact, if you are a Democrat of that age your first political book was probably \u201cRush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.\u201d That book probably influenced your awareness of irony not just in comedy, but in politics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So that’s <\/em>what we have to thank for Markos Moulitsas, Jesus’\u00a0General, the Democrat Underground and\u00a0the chanting masses of droogs in Jon Stewart’s\u00a0audience.\u00a0<\/p>\nAnd so, you probably knew about Franken\u2019s past \u201clow\u201d humor in addition to his many moments of deep insight (the kind of insight that would be useful in some kind of lofty federal office from a prominnt Midwestern state other than Wisconsin).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’m struggling to remember a moment of “insight” “deeper” than “This is the decade of Al Franken”.\u00a0 Feel free to fill me in.<\/p>\n
\u00a0If you are unfamiliar with Franken\u2019s very real transition from SNL jokester to satirist, however, the idea of a comedian gradually shifting gears over to public service seems to many as crazy as that crazy wrestler we elected governor and wasn\u2019t that crazy! Damn kids!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
You mean Dean Barkley and Tim Penny’s sock puppet<\/strike> our former “governor”, the 9\/11 Truther?\u00a0 You “kids” have some ‘splainin’ to do.<\/p>\n
To get to what is perhaps Aaron Brown’s larger point – the higher-level concept that’s uncontaminated by inconvenient reality – let’s say a conservative<\/em> comic were to run for, say, Senate.\u00a0 Let’s say Dennis Miller (I know, more a libertarian than a conservative, but he’s right on most of the issues, and much funnier and <\/em>politically cogent than Franken ever was) moved to Minnesota to take on Amy “A-Klo” Klobuchar in 2012.\u00a0<\/p>\nWhat would A-Klo’s campaign have to work with, other than thirty years of comedy?\u00a0 From Dusk ‘Til Dawn<\/strike> Bordello of Blood<\/em>?\u00a0 Monday Night Football?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Joe Dirt<\/em>? <\/em>His switch from frowzy lefty to 9\/11 libertarian?<\/p>\nWould A-Klo be at a loss for much more to talk about <\/em>in re Miller?<\/p>\nWhat more is there<\/em> to Al Franken?<\/p>\nI submit for your approval:\u00a0 Nothing.<\/p>\n
Discuss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m a little late with this one – but, given Al Franken’s latest ad buy (“I was a comedian, er, satirist; sometimes the jokes went off the mark, but that’s comedy.\u00a0 Minnesota’s future is no joke to me”), I think it’s timely enough. Last week sometime, Aaron Brown of “Minnesota Brown” kind of summed up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-2932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08","category-minnesota-politics","tag-a-klo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2932"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76205,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions\/76205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}