Comedian Says Minnesota Run Is a Serious One
By MONICA DAVEY
New York Times
ST. PAUL — Even as Al Franken stretches out his big doughy hand to another potential voter inside Nina’s Coffee Cafe on a recent morning, it is easy to forget that Mr. Franken, the former “Saturday Night Live” star, the satirist and author, the liberal radio host, is trying to be elected to the United States Senate.
“They should be allowing more dogs in places,” Mr. Franken deadpans to the voter, “dogs in grocery stores, dogs in hardware stores.”
Would-be senators do not usually meander into such lines of conversation. Nor do they make up silly songs incorporating the names on their list during “call time,” the endless hours spent calling prospective donors. Nor do they draw freehand sketches of the United States as a party trick at campaign meet-and-greets.
Then again, there are many moments these days when Mr. Franken sounds exactly like a candidate. He has taken up the politician’s habit of peppering tales with the names of people he has talked to on his campaign trail, like Kathy Kawalek, the nurse in Cambridge, Minn., who he says told him of elderly people growing ill because they stopped taking costly medications.
And he repeats phrases and whole paragraphs just like every other candidate using and reusing bits from a stump speech. “They were 11 when Bush became president,” he often says of young voters. “Some don’t remember that a president can be articulate. They don’t remember that the federal government worked. And the saddest thing was that they don’t remember that our country was well respected around the world.”
This is what a first-time Franken candidacy looks like: an odd balancing act between being the guy people expect to be hilarious and crassly partisan and being a candidate voters need to be convinced will be earnest and sedate enough to look right in a senate chamber.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
ST. PAUL — Even as Al Franken stretches out his big doughy hand to another potential voter inside Nina’s Coffee Cafe on a recent morning, it is easy to forget that Mr. Franken, the former “Saturday Night Live” star, the satirist and author, the liberal radio host, is trying to be elected to the United States Senate.
“They should be allowing more dogs in places,” Mr. Franken deadpans to the voter, “dogs in grocery stores, dogs in hardware stores.”
Would-be senators do not usually meander into such lines of conversation. Nor do they make up silly songs incorporating the names on their list during “call time,” the endless hours spent calling prospective donors. Nor do they draw freehand sketches of the United States as a party trick at campaign meet-and-greets.
Then again, there are many moments these days when Mr. Franken sounds exactly like a candidate. He has taken up the politician’s habit of peppering tales with the names of people he has talked to on his campaign trail, like Kathy Kawalek, the nurse in Cambridge, Minn., who he says told him of elderly people growing ill because they stopped taking costly medications.
And he repeats phrases and whole paragraphs just like every other candidate using and reusing bits from a stump speech. “They were 11 when Bush became president,” he often says of young voters. “Some don’t remember that a president can be articulate. They don’t remember that the federal government worked. And the saddest thing was that they don’t remember that our country was well respected around the world.”
This is what a first-time Franken candidacy looks like: an odd balancing act between being the guy people expect to be hilarious and crassly partisan and being a candidate voters need to be convinced will be earnest and sedate enough to look right in a senate chamber.
(Continued here.)
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