Al Franken for Senate in 2008

I wish I lived in Minnesota just so I could vote for Al. I think he'll kick Norm Coleman's butt. If you need me though, just let me know.

should make for an interesting race.

He'd get my vote! He's good enough, smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like him!

We just had this conversation at work a few minutes ago. I am in Rochester, MN and we all know and love Al. Some think he doesn't yet have the poitical name recognition to actually win, but most of us on second shift would love it if he would. Many remember him only from SNL, but lots of us are talk radio fans.

Al would get my vote if I lived there. I've enjoyed his satire, his political commentary, and his writing on SNL over the years. He may have some trouble convincing people he is serious, but after his relentless efforts on Air America no one should question his dedication to the Democratic party.

Although Mr. Franken certainly brings humor to the table, he's also quite an intelligent person. I think that when he gets more mainstream media attention and has the opportunity to express his views and ideas, audiences will recognize his true potential as a serious politician.

One Al Franken in the Senate would be a better choice than even ten Norm Colemans

I wonder if any other Dems will run? Does he have it in the bag already?

The Dems want this seat back bad and will go to any length to get it. I predict a charactor assignation campaign on Coleman like we have never seen before. And of course, the local media will feed on it because they, deep down inside want Al to win.

The 2008 election will the bloodiest election of all time. Both locally and nationally. We will play a great part because we are hosting one of the conventions and if a national personality like Franken gets the nomination.

Who else would run for this spot for the Dems? Wetterling? The "Sandman" Johnson? Mike Cerisi? Hatch?

I haven't heard any rumblings of other potential candidates for Coleman's seat.

Of course the Democrats want the seat - probably even more than the Republicans want to retain it. Remember, this was Paul Wellstone's seat - and that makes it unique for Democrats who were devastated by Wellstone's sudden death which led to Coleman's victory in 2002.

It's premature to say anyone "has it in the bag" - but that's probably true with every election (unless it's fixed).

Diana, you seem to be a well connected Democarat. Has anyone else expressed interest in running? I don't think I've heard a word from anyone except the talk of Mike Cersisi. And I'm not sure if Cerisi is that great of candidate except he has a boatload of money from the tobacco settlement. And, I 'm not sure if Mike Ceresi has actually said it himself, or is it people just thinking he'd run.

Gary,

Ciresi has allegedly told The Jewish Daily Forward that he is "very strongly leaning" toward running and he certainly has enough of his own money to do it. Additionally, there's a Hmong Senator in E. St. Paul (Mee Moua) who is supposedly being asked to run. Other names bandied about have been Dean Johnson (no), Hatch (no), R. T. Rybak (no), Betty McCollum and Tim Walz. My guess is McCollum and Walz are happy trying to serve the people of Minnesota where they are and that all the others wouldn't be favorites among voters.

If Ciresi sought and obtained party endorsement and ran a nasty primary campaign against Franken, he might have a chance (again - my guess). What I really think is that it's too early to wrap this one up - but Franken should NOT be underestimated.

Franken will not make a serious run for Senator. He will make a lot of noise, garner a lot of publicity, preach to the progressive choir -- but he will not run for Senator.

Keep in mind that there are several hundred hours of Al Franken ranting on Air America - and saying some frightfully stupid and paranoid things; things that will not play in Pequot lakes.

The idea of Al Franken as a senator will be a hard sell to some people, but not at all to many others.

Greg, have you ever met him?

I ran into him once in The New French Cafe, He was holding court with the usual socially insulated, isolated folks. He seemed a very nice guy, in an urban sort of way.

He is no Paul Wellstone, but then again the ONLY reason that Paul Wellstone, a senator who never authored a single bill, was elected twice was that he ran against the prickly patrician Rudy Boswitch - twice.

I have to correct one statement, I do believe that Franken will file to run as a Senator. He is running, to attack Colemen, and fully expects to be knocked out in the primaries. If, oh lucky day, Franken, by some quirk, is elected then Colemen will use his contacts in the Bronx to savage Franken over the $1.2 million plundered from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club and Daycare as illegal loans and free Volvos for Air America.

Face it, The War On Poverty is the most costly, longest running, and highest American casualty failed war this country has ever fought -- isn't it about time that we exposed its war profiteers like Franken?

I would hope that instead of catering to a clown like Franken, the DFL would look to cleaning up its own act and its own fiscal mess. It could start with:

- The $11 BILLION dollar shortfall that Minnesota civil servants overpaid themselves during the last 5 years.

- It could try to recover the $1 BILLION paid in a Dick Cheney style no-bid contract to the DFL's Mike Cerisi for the tobacco lawsuit, and maybe even open the sealed court records so we could find out how much money Mike really got in addition to his standard charge.

- It could clean up the orange jump-suited DFL and Green Party crowd at city hall in Minneaopolis. (Really --- we went 20 years without anyone on the council going to jail, then after the last Republican leaves - three people head off to prison)

Well Evil Jeff ran in 2006, although I only garnered a few hundred write in votes, hopefully I will do better if I decide to run again in 2008!

Your going DOWN Franken!

Greg, the budget shortfall will likely be revealed as larger than $11 billion but Governor Pawlenty should be able to answer any questions you have about that. I do understand that Minnesota taxpayers are in the red to the tune of hundreds of millions annually due to the participation of HMO's in the state's health insurance programs.

Whatever Ciresi's lawfirm made on the tobacco deal was as a result of a contingency agreement made prior to commencement of the case. No other lawfirm was willing to take on Big Tobacco and you've got to give Ciresi some credit for being on the right side of that one.

As to the orange jumpsuits, I really don't want to argue which party has committed more crimes than the other and I don't think you do, either.

Jeff, go for it!

Diane, I notice how you deftly painted Pawlenty with the sins of the DFL's cash cow. We are not talking about "a budget shortfall" we are talking about how the civil service unions have been partying like it was 1998, for over half a decade.

As for Ciresi, do you understand what a "no-bid" contract is?

We know which party in Minneapolis committed more crimes, the score is DFL 2, Green 1, Republicans 0.

Um, Greg, no..... If you are looking for the source of the majority of the fraud in government you will have to look straight at the Republicans and their greasy greedy little fingers. The Democrats are worse about their social lives and getting in trouble doing stupid stuff there and creating scandal, but the Republicans are the more likely group to be blatantly stealing from the public.

Of course, the Evil party, we are perfect!

Greg,

I do understand how law firms charge clients having worked at the largest ones in the state for many years.

Admittedly, I don't know "how the civil service unions have been partying like it was 1998, for over half a decade."

With regard to Al Franken, it is expected that he will announce his run for senate very soon.

Um, Greg, no..... If you are looking for the source of the majority of the fraud in government you will have to look straight at the Republicans and their greasy greedy little fingers.

You have a very short memory Jeff. Compare the number of people indicted and convicted for fraud and corruption under the last administration with this one.

The Democrats have ALWAYS been THE party of corruption. Look at the present Congress. What is the difference between ABSCAM Murtha or Cold Cash Jefferson and the Republicans?

Well, the Republicans get convicted and booted out of office, the Democrats.....well everyone EXPECTS them to be corrupt so why bother?

Can you explain to me why Ms. Klobachur, whose office is 100 yards to the south of the corrupt Minneapolis City Council, did nothing about it, while it took a FEDERAL prosecutor housed 100 yards north to bring these crooks to justice?

The answer is pretty simple. Amy did not want to ruffle feathers in her DFL base by convicting people for doing what they ALL do.

Admittedly, I don't know "how the civil service unions have been partying like it was 1998, for over half a decade."

Let me get this straight, you know nothing of an $11 Billion pension shortfall due to corrupt union lobbying practices, but you know all about a comedian running for Senate?

That is PRECISELY my problem with the Twin Cities progressive community, they have so given themselves over to hysterical partisanship that they have forgotten what government is all about.

Here is a primer on the pension problem From The Federal Reserve May 2006: Pension deficit disorder

From the sound of the convesation here, this looks like it could be a real mud-slinging race. However, from what I read, Coleman is going to have a hard time of it, regardless of who runs against him. There's already an anti-Republican (not necessarily pro-Democrat) mood in the country (and I assume that's true of MN also), and the continuing debacle in Iraq will only entrench those sentiments. Also, the proceedings in the Scooter Libby trial won't help Republicans, either.

Greg - if you mean the budget shortfall as reported here by the Associated Press - yes, I've read about that.

I didn't make the connection from your words "civil service unions have been partying like it was 1998, for over half a decade." Your link led me to an article about Molly Ivins so - I'm still not 100% sure what the 1998 party was but am guessing that the story you will access through the link I provided is what you meant.

Greg, you might want to write your own article on that topic.

Diane, that was weird.

Here is the article from the federal reserve http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/fedgaz/06-05/cover.cfm

Party like it's 1999

Rising unfunded liabilities is a recent reversal of fortune. Just a short half-decade ago, public pensions were flush, thanks to the bull stock market of the 1990s. By 2001, actuarial funding ratios (liabilities divided by assets) for 103 of the nation's largest local and state pensions, including 16 in the district, averaged 101 percent—fully funded, plus change, according to NASRA. Many of the largest public pensions in the district showed a similar healthy glow.

Then came the stock market crash, and pensions started sinking. By 2004, the big pensions saw their funding ratios decline to 88 percent. Roughly three in 10 had a funding ratio below 80 percent, a level many view as the actuarial line in the sand.

The sweet life?

In a perverse way, however, outsized stock returns rationalized a fundamental change in the pension recipe: Benefits were regularly increased, and contributions—particularly from employers—tended to lose pace, at least among those with poor funding ratios.

Benefit spending, in short, has exploded. Census data show that between 1992 and 2004, benefit expenditures across the country rose 175 percent. Among district states, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin all saw benefit expenditures increase by more than 225 percent during this period; Michigan and Montana had the smallest increases, both at around 120 percent (see chart).

In short, when times were sweet the Teacher's Union and AFCME lobbied for increased benefits, when the Clinton Stock Bubble burst, they lobbied to maintain the same level of spending even though their investments could not warrant that level of expenditure.

Pensions like The Minneapolis Teachers....damned well knew what was happening. They stayed quite until their train ran right off the track.

Where was the DFL on this one?

Answer, using their minority leverage to keep the Repubicans from fixing the mess.

Greg: Her name is Diana, not Diane. She's too polite to correct you, but I'm not.

By repeatedly getting her name wrong, you're either being intentionally rude, or you're showing a slipshod attitude toward the factual world around you. Neither is going to earn you any converts for your arguments, so whether you're being petty or lazy, you're just hurting yourself.

I'm hoping that someone was taping all those Franken radio shows. I will presume they had. They will make great commericals. Of course he will get the left wing's vote but will have a hard time winning over the middle with the leftist talk from his radio show.

The local media, including MPR, will give Franken a pass on his past. They would be just estatic to see Coleman lose.

on a really good day, with a light wind out of the West, Al could just about have an open discussion about a middle ground topic without resorting to ridicule or low humor with a set of instruction on how not to do so spread across his knees, and someone else seeing to it that he stuck to the subject.

His radio show was tanking in the rating anyway as he has said on the air.

You know it seems to me that the Democrats could put up a coffee stain and beat Mr. Coleman based on his parties undertakings over the recent past. But it won't work that way because of democratic compliance with overall Crown Party protectionism, they also acted to allow current events to come to pass.

Neither one of these organizations holds a truely encompassing support of the people because more and more people recognize that they are not being served by party candidates, thus the rise of serious third party contenders who try even harder to throw a wider net of support, fragmenting the standard bases of both arms of the Crown Party.

The problem as I see it is that none of these independents are really that much more focused on public service, on being a citizen representative as opposed to a party representative and this, along with their genuinely fragmented support efforts ultimately hurts them against the more well entrenched and better funded Crown Party candidates.

Given that, I'm thinking that a Franken candidacy victory depends on the marketing involved in the struggle between the groups. He who has the most effective marketing, whether it's promoting their candidates positives while minimizing the negatives, or vilifying the opponent, will win. Not issues, actions, and results, but marketing.

It will be another example of the genuinely sad state of political standards and accountability we regularly see.

There is a solution to this but so long as the parties in power act to primarily protect their (and their significant supporters) position as wielder of the people's political authority, there is no likely end to the status quo corruption in sight.

Issues considered not as issues but rather as vehicles for party power retention, and arbitrary corruption favoring some at the cost of the many (for example the party solutions to the illegal immigration/ economic terrorism issue) will continue to be the practice in our nation.

No matter how many genuinely good and well intentioned individuals like Al Franken or Norm Coleman we elect, Crown Party corruption corrupts regally and effectively, and their well meaningness will be marginalized by the greater party machine.

Only citizens can change this situation, most effectively at the voting booth, and we just aren't vested enough it seems any more. It's almost like it's not our country, it belongs to those we've allowed to take it from us.

Even in an extremely liberal state such as Minnesota Al has absolutely no chance of winning in a senatorial race. His comments are too off the wall for the average MN voter. Can you imagine the attack ads that would be run against him? I think this is more of a publicity stunt, and in that regards he will make a big splash.

As for Norm Coleman's campaign, he has to overcome the alienation of his own base. He will not sway the liberals to vote for him and he has successfully pushed away his conservative support base. His best bet is to switch parties AGAIN. Either way I do not believe old Normy will be going back to DC.

Greg: Her name is Diana, not Diane. She's too polite to correct you, but I'm not.

It goes like this, Mark.

Mark: Her name is Diana, not Diane.

Greg: Oops, don't I feel foolish.

Mark: No problem.

Greg: Thanks Mark.

Diana, you called it first!! I agree with you're assessment of Al Franken. He is very intelligent, caring and yes extremely funny. Sounds like someone I'd like to think about giving my vote to.

Thanks, Mo-zy.

I like Al's line that he's the only New York Jew in the race, that actually grew up in Minnesota. :) What I'm looking for is how much money the GOP is going to funnel into this race. I have the feeling Norm will run into the same abandonment Mark Kennedy ran into. No one wants to back a loser, even evil fat cats. Maybe ESPECIALLY EVIL FAT CATS.