"Al Franken for Senate (?)"

Wednesday, 21 February 2007
715 words

As Al Franken sat broadcasting his last radio show, one couldn’t help but get a tingly, “our long national nightmare is over” feeling. Air America started as an intellectual abortion and continued downward from there, failing at every conceivable turn to implement financial restraint or quality control measures, in the end deciding it was easier to beg liberal billionaires for more funding than to make itself worthy of free market success. Good riddance to bad rubbish, and all that.

But Franken, not one to know when he’s overstayed his welcome, took the occasion to announce he’s running for Senate. And if that weren’t funny enough, he’s seeking the Democratic nomination – which is interesting, because one would think he’d feel more at home lingering amongst Communists, hoping to secure their approval. Or the Socialist Party of Minnesota, or the Greens, or some other small, loosely confederated band of filthy malcontents too drunk or high to build and maintain an official website.

Question: Why do people who couldn’t win a one-man race for dogcatcher insist on running for important offices? Ask Franken that question and he’ll probably recite for you the exact number of times Bill Clinton was told he couldn’t win the Democratic nomination for president. Next thing you know, Clinton is second only to Paul Tsongas in New Hampshire and a few months away from winning High Office. No doubt Franken thinks he can shock the world, but whoever has the job of telling Franken the truth is falling far short of their duties. Bill Clinton was a once-in-a-lifetime politician, that combustible yet oddly attractive blend of snake oil salesman and cool step-dad; a frivolous man for frivolous times.

Not only is Al Franken not Bill Clinton in frivolous times, he has the great misfortune of being Al Franken in very serious times. Granted, lesser men have been elevated to higher positions; and granted, Franken has spent the last few years familiarizing himself with Minnesota politics. He’s also terrifically unpleasant and shrill, and when not being unpleasant and shrill, so boring he brings the listener to tears. Take his campaign announcement (please). Someone somewhere may find it compelling, but after about four minutes the tedium becomes unceasing. It’s no wonder he has three number one bestselling books and a failed radio show; even for true believers, Franken is best seen and not heard.

So Franken will have to discover and strike a delicate balance between shrill tirades and monotonous chants, or invent an entirely new campaign persona, all while keeping his eyes to the prepared text. More than anyone else hoping to unseat Norm Coleman, Candidate Franken must employ scriptwriters he can trust – if left to his own devices, he’s incapable of censoring himself before it’s to late. (In political terms, “too late” is that moment just after you hear yourself muttering “Hymie Town,” or similar.)

You can take the man out of comedy, but you cannot take comedy out of the man. Though significantly more stilted in delivery now than when he was younger and interesting, Franken’s first instinct is still to find and deliver the most provocative line. (If you’ve seen him interviewed on Hardball at any point in the last few years, you know what this means.) Which is fine when you’re cracking wise and defending yourself against drunks at the Chuckle Hut, not so much if you’re trying to convince fellow Democrats you’re better than the other candidates. It’s one thing to preach to the choir, those 37 Minnesotans who listened to his radio show on a consistent basis. It’s something else altogether to make yourself appealing to moderates, about whom Franken has virtually no knowledge.

That Franken cannot win is a foregone conclusion (the Clinton paradigm aside). Only fellow travelers will ever find him the most attractive candidate; in other words, old world socialists who were willing to follow him off a cliff long before he ever announced a candidacy. For thoughtful, reasonable Democrats, the endgame is to defeat Norm Coleman in November 2008, not to nominate a man who would be vivisected by his own words months before Election Day. For those so inclined, Franken will provide an ideological chortle here and there, but on the whole should be out of the race before Minnesota Democrats make their decision.