A few years ago, I heard Al Franken speak at an event. Actually, he was interviewed by Rob Reiner but it was the same thing. I came away from the hall convinced not only that Franken's political aspirations were serious but that voters could do a lot worse than put a guy like him into office…and usually have. In his Saturday Night Live days, he had a rep in the industry as a smartass punk and a lot of people disliked him. A lot of people dislike him now but for different reasons, having more to do with his politics. He seems to have outgrown the frat boy smarminess and the times I've seen him lately, he's been gentlemanly and surprisingly cordial to and about his detractors.
So I'm kinda happy to see him be a Senator, even in a squeaker, and I find it hard to believe that Norm Coleman thought he was doing anything other than to delay the inevitable. I followed the recount and I not only never saw that Coleman had a case, I never saw him take a position that was not a reversal of a previous position. It was kind of like, "The election should be voided because the ballots were pink." And then when the authorities refused to overturn things for that reason, it was, "The election should be voided because the ballots were not pink." The argument that he "stole" the election seems predicated on the assumption that voters could not possibly have elected someone like Al Franken…or maybe that since recounts sometimes yield a different outcome, the one you don't like must, by definition, be bogus.
I watched Franken today as he joined the dinner theater, playing to the cameras while pretending to question Judge Sotomayor. The man seems to have learned that if you're a politician, you can never miss a chance to mention your family, growing up in your home state and how long you've been married. That all seems to carry more weight with some voters than anything you might actually do in office.
Franken picked up on Sotomayor's earlier comment to someone that she decided she wanted to be a prosecutor after watching the old Perry Mason show. Al Franken the Comedy Writer would have used that to ask, "Why? Because you enjoy losing every week?" That's how you structure a joke off that…but it might have made the nominee look silly or stumped her for an answer. So Al Franken the Senator instead brought up their mutual love of Perry Mason, noted how the prosecutor always lost and then said something about how it was a testimony to her character and determination that she wasn't dissuaded by that example. Or something like that. I do recall noting that he didn't go for the joke at her expense. I thought that was kinda interesting.