Dispatch from Minnesota: Al Franken v. Norm Coleman

By Alexander Zaitchik
The Nation

Saturday, July 12, Humboldt High School auditorium, St. Paul. Al Franken has just taken the podium to address the central committee of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party, a rowdy force of several hundred seated by district. The crowd falls silent as the candidate adjusts the microphone. "I filed my paperwork this week," Franken tells the party leaders. And after a perfectly timed pause, adds, "It went flawlessly."

This one-two, uttered by any other candidate, would have fallen flat or made no sense. But Franken is not any other candidate, and with his delivery, the line is funny. Very funny. The auditorium fills not with the polite chuckles common to candidate jokes, but with genuine belly laughs. The veteran comedian turned senatorial candidate slays the room with ease.

Franken then gets down to business. "We have 115 days to go," he says. "Now is the time. We have to get up early and stay up late. Canvass until our fee hurt. Then pick up the phone." To motivate the troops, he recounts a story illustrating the passion and endurance of the late Paul Wellstone, whose seat Franken and the DFL are determined to take back from the current occupant and usurper, Republican Norm Coleman.

Wellstone's memory is alive and strong among Minnesota's DFL, and Franken's anecdote about the late senator, who died with his wife and daughter in a plane crash while campaigning in 2002, sends the energy in the room to fever pitch. Franken leaves the auditorium to a rafter-shaking chant of "Go, Al, Go!", the candidate pumping his fist in the air as he makes a dramatic exit.

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