Hey folks,
There has been a couple of articles like this one. He seems to be gaining momentum, yeah OK, I really cannot be serious about this. This guy is a loon. He is completely nuts, and thinks people actually care what he has to say. A self important, ignorant dweeb. But then again, he IS running for Senate. So I guess that WOULD qualify him to be the newest member of the LWL.Who am I talking about? Al Franken. According to Time.com - Not So Funny By JOEL STEIN Fri Aug 15, 8:05 PM ET
Rogers (pop. 7,000) is one of the more conservative towns in Minnesota, but that makes Al Franken just more excited to parade the hell out of the place. He's in a parking lot, standing near floats for a pro-life organization and two different Christian youth groups, and he is bouncing and clapping like Ali before a fight. Once he is given the signal to march, he's at it full force. When he catches someone looking him over, he throws both hands in the air, does a funny foot-flail-in-place thing, turns around and jogs across the street until he's in front of the parade viewer, high-fives her and yells, "I'm Al Franken! Running for Senate! Help me out!" He'll zigzag the length of the parade, sprinting forward and backward, an intern trailing behind him with a towel so he can mop the sweat off his face. Between the end of June and Labor Day, nearly every town in Minnesota has a parade. Franken is in very good shape.If running for Senate were an Olympic event, Franken would win. If it were a battle of wills or a name-recognition poll or some kind of nerdy trivia battle, he'd win those too. Even if it were just a question of having people agree with your policies, he'd win a Senate seat in the state, where Barack Obama is ahead of John McCain. But getting elected means making people believe you can relate to them, and that's why Franken - writer, actor, comedian, talk-show host and longtime denizen of Saturday Night Live - is running behind Republican Senator Norm Coleman.
No. Lets tell the truth here folks. He is a failed writer, poor actor, lousy comedian who only had a few moments, and did I mention his talk show is a bomb. Truth is, not too many people really LIKE him. He crude, holds insane beliefs, and is completely ignorant of reality.
At $28 million and counting, this is the most expensive Senate race in the country, with most of the cash coming from out of state.
Which is usually the case behind Liberals running for office. Most are financed by a few very wealthy donors.
Franken, who moved from New York back to his home state nearly three years ago for this election, has been on the defensive from the start, as Coleman has mined all sorts of offensive lines from thousands of jokes the comedian has told over his 57 years. "It's uncharted territory," says Franken. "They pull out a bit about a speech to Hartford Technical College, which is a made-up school. The bit was me pretending I was a jerk, but no one in their right mind would think I would actually say it. But they used it to say how much of an Élitist I am." To say what a pervert Franken is, Coleman alluded to a smutty humor piece about virtual sex that Franken wrote for Playboy eight years ago. Of course, Franken has said much worse, especially if you repeat a joke in the stentorian voice of a political ad.
This month, Franken stopped arguing about how un-Hollywood his lifestyle is (he's been married to the same Minnesota woman for 32 years, and she made extra sandwiches when she heard I was spending the day with him) and instead ran ads about how he's not proud of all the jokes he's told. Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic Senator from Plymouth, Minn., applauded Franken for that. "Minnesotans, if they hear people saying things they think are inappropriate, they want an explanation. I think it's good he confronted it and talked about it." Franken has hired all kinds of staffers from other campaigns, but what he really needs, much like the New Yorker, is a staffer who explains his jokes.
Look. Being a comedian is being a comedian. Imagine if you will someone like Cris Rock running for office. Talk about racism. People could have a field day with his stuff. So with this, I actually will defend Al. I'm sure that all during his history, he never imagined running for office. He was a comedian he told jokes. He did bits. ETC. You cannot use that against him now. This is completely different. A joke is a joke. Policies and plans, true opinions, and real comments are what counts.
Back when he was trying to be the Bill O'Reilly of the left, ranting as a host on Air America and writing books like Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, Franken didn't have to modulate his personality. Now he has cut way back on the joking and has become a little more boring than people are used to. Which wouldn't be a big deal - he's still funnier than any other candidate in American history - but voters here are so familiar with him that a little holding back erodes his authenticity. "Occasionally, I go, 'Oh, there's a kind of joke I don't do anymore.' I used to not care if a joke could be misinterpreted. Now I do care if a joke can be misunderstood," he says. "But that doesn't take up a lot of brain space to figure that out." He won't, for instance, appear on Saturday Night Live this season. "We have to do everything so people understand that this is a real campaign and not just a conceptual-art piece," he says.
No Al, I think people know you are serious. That is what is scaring them. {Smile}
For a guy who named the 1980s after himself, he has run a remarkably genuine campaign. He's been at it for nearly five years, going around the state to parades and barbecues and supporting local Democrats by using his celebrity to draw people to fund raisers. He learned the local politics of Minnesota, first going to Washington to meet all the state's Representatives and then systematically meeting everyone who influences county politics and who would later need to be wooed at the state caucuses. "I enjoyed it, but not to the extent Bill Clinton does," says Franken. And he's a little worn down from all the fund-raising. "I don't mind calling people for money. I mind asking people for money for five hours in a row. It drives me crazy." His footing has been good, despite the fact that his campaign says opponents have several people videotaping him at most public events. One hung around so much that Team Franken adopted him and fed him the kind of chocolate it discovered he liked best.
Like a pet. {Laughing}
After the Rogers parade, Franken rides an hour to the Chisago County Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party BBQ, where he asks the jazz band of elderly men to play him in. In front of 50 people, he delivers his stump speech about how kids he meets in high schools cannot remember an America that is respected in the world.
That Sir. THAT is not a joke. That is also one of the reason that people do not like you. Nor do they like Obama, nor any other card carrying member of the LWL. America IS the greatest country in the world. Always has been, always will be. We are not about to change it into that of which people are trying to leave, just so the world will love us. They will continue to have little to no problem taking our money, but they will still hate our way of life at the same time. It is asinine statements like this that make people truly believe that people like you do not like this country, therefore, they will NEVER vote for you.
Then he jogs off to serve hot dogs. Standing nearby is Jim Oberstar, a Democrat in the House since 1975, who marvels at how hard Franken has worked the state. Oberstar has given Franken only one bit of advice, which he delivered right after they met years ago at another barbecue. "I told him, 'You have to stop laughing when you talk to people.' It was an unconscious action on his part. Something he's done in his career." Franken's harsh, loud laugh after his own jokes isn't just weird for a politician; it's weird for a comedian. It's a bully's laugh, a challenge to disagree. And like all his tools, Franken wields it bluntly, completely unlike a politician.
No. Politicians smile and say one thing, before they get into office and then try to bully others. {Smile}
Which is the other challenge that comes with tempering Franken's sense of humor: he can't use it to hide his aggression. Franken is that rare confrontational nerd, the tough Jew of a generation before him instead of the smoother, modern one that Coleman exemplifies. He still has the chest and disposition of a high school wrestler, and he famously took down a disruptive heckler at a Howard Dean rally in 2004. He loves obscure policy details, partly because he can use them to verbally beat up opponents. At the debate with Coleman on Aug. 5 at Farmfest in Redwood County, he seemed to win all the arguments but lose the audience with his aggressive style. Even for a potential Senator, he is relentlessly competitive. When we're riding in the back of his Ford Escape hybrid, I make the mistake of mentioning that when I interviewed Ted Nugent, he didn't know the Ten Commandments. For the next five minutes, Franken doesn't talk about anything except trying to name all the commandments. (He succeeds.) Then I make an even stupider comment about how much harder it would be to name all the constitutional amendments, and Franken is off again. "Holy mackerel," he says after rattling off the first three. "Come on, I know them! Let's do it! Let's do it together!" Luckily, we do not.
Knowing the Constitution and wanting to DEFEND it and FOLLOW it at all cost are two different things.
But toward the end of the day, Franken finds a way to connect. He's at the Rum River Family House Residence, a place for recovering-addict moms. And he doesn't even consider making a joke about the fact that it's the world's worst-named rehab center. Sitting around the living room, drinking coffee and eating lemon bars that the recovering meth moms have made, Franken reveals that he was "co-dependent" with someone close to him. As they tell their addiction stories, he's perfectly empathetic, nodding and using the language of recovery like someone mistakenly doing a serious, dramatic reading of his 12-step Saturday Night Live character, Stuart Smalley. After they finish, Franken looks up and says, "Thanks for inspiring me. If I'm in the Senate, I'll fight for this stuff. Because ..." And then he stops and looks away, trying not to cry. It's silent for a minute, and then one of the women quietly says, "You've got my vote." To which Franken says, "That's why I said it." And at that moment, Franken is an unbeatable politician. Not because he's funny or smart. But because all the people in the room know he understands them.
Nice story. However Al, sorry. It's not the jokes you use to tell. It's not Airhead America. It's not your aggressive style. It's what you ACTUALLY believe that makes you this weeks winner. Congratulations Al Franken, you ARE the Idiot of the Week. However, that jogging in the parade thing is pretty cool.
Peter
Sources:
Time.com - Not So Funny
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