So Al Franken has made it Official

by Sara

Right in the midst of the last of the Libby Trial, Al Franken made it official, he is running for the Senate in 08 against Norm Coleman in Minnesota.

I only wish Molly Ivins had lived long enough for this day, because this was her idea back in the black days when Coleman had beaten Mondale after the Paul & Sheila Wellstone plane crash, and the US was invading Iraq.  After Paul's death they created a living memorial called "Wellstone Action" which now sponsors the schools that teach people how to run for office and support campaigns, called "Camp Wellstone" -- and on the board were Al Franken, Molly Ivins and Walter Mondale, among others.  During a coffee break in one of the early board meetings, Molly turned to Walter and told him that when the time came, Al Franken should run for what is sometimes called the "Wellstone Seat" and after Walter said that was a good idea, they just talked strategy -- how to bring it about.  Well Molly, it is going to happen.  But I have actually assumed it would since Walter more or less announced it during a Carter Center Forum broadcast deep late night on C-Span a little over a year ago. 

Franken will have an opponent for the DFL endorsement -- in fact he may have about five, but one of the reasons I am posting today is because I want to relate this announcement to our DFL rules so that those who have never had the (Privilege? Honor? Job?) of chairing the credentials committee at State Convention (which I did the year Wellstone got the Endorsement), can comprehend what will have to happen over the next year and some months if Franken is really to be the DFL Candidate in November 2008.

Let's first go to the main party endorsement opponent, Mike Ciresi.  Normally he would be a rather good candidate.  He is a trial attorney, made multi-bucks in the Tobacco cases, and represented the Republic of India against Union Carbide in the Bopal matter.  He's run before in a 4 way multi-bucks primary which Mark Dayton won in 2000.  He self funded in 2000, but says he will not do so this time.  There is much time to diss him if necessary, won't do so today in large measure because he announced on Monday and made a very critical pledge -- he would abide by the endorsement of the DFL State Convention which will be late May-early June, 2008.  Since Al promised the same pledge today, that means we will not have a devisive multi million bucks primary in September of 2008. Of course a minor candidate can enter the primary, but Ciresi and Franken are the two big cheese hunks in this race.  So primary not a big worry at this point.

There are lots of ways to frame this race -- and over the next year or so I will probably adopt pieces from all of them, but just wanted to let readers here know details not available in the 300+ google news items, but should perhaps be around and about in a race like this. 

I actually first proposed a comedian for the Senate back in the mid 1980's (before Wellstone actually) in Mike Ciresi's Kitchen during a fundraiser.  Dressed in my black and sliver Silk Punjabi Suit, I riffed what a Garrison Keillor Campaign might look like, and suggested it should be thought through when folk were totally sober and not in party party mode.  Since then there are some who think I wrote the model for Ventura -- heck no, I don't do Professional Wrestlers.  (But Minnesota should be famous for having a school that teaches fake slam-slam-bang-bang along with how to create a synthesis of this with the arts of the Berl-i-Que.  It is actually an old cow barn out in Anoka that has been refurbished. Many students have become millionaires.)   

So to Franken -- who is this stand up comic who wants to be a US Senator, and whom I do think deserves the "Seat of Wellstone."  I actually met him somewhat before he went to Harvard -- when he was just anxious high school kid hanging around Dudley Riggs Cafe Expresso -- the only comedy club in town back in the 1960's.  Way back in early grad school days I did late Friday Night and Saturday night work at the cafe -- making cappuccino and sometimes doing tables -- my then boyfriend was doing lights for the show -- in those days it was Dan Sullivan who eventually became a Times Drama Critic who wrote most of the shows, but between Sullivan and Dudley Riggs, there was something like a grad seminar in comedy writing and production underway no matter what you were doing.   Now Riggs was not an academic, he had run away with the circus when he was -- what -- 14, and he had been a high wire man with the Flying Wallendeas (? Spelling).  The night their five high stack went down in Iowa -- the Cafe went dark.  Anyhow through a couple of bankruptcy actions, Dudley kept the Cafe and the Satire theatre going with odd investors, and while I was not working there when Franken arrived as a high school kid interested in learning to write and act comedy, I did drop by, and have some limited memory of him.  I do know I sat at the next table once when Garrison Keillor was also there watching the acts.  One of Dudley's famous bits was to run out during intermission, come back with the Bulldog edition of the Minneapolis Tribune, and riff off the local politics.  The actors had to help.  The Bulldog edition may have gone to newspaper heaven by the time Franken arrived, but however they replaced it, that was his school. 

His School was also St. Louis Park High School -- and his class was somewhat exceptional in that it included Norm Orenstein, Tom Friedman and Franken.  These guys go back to grade school, and they have always been competing with each other.  Not for Quarterback, not for Starter in Basketball -- no, in politics.  And they all are essentially DFL'ers, though Orenstein and Friedman would never never admit that.  They are part of one culture, but they profoundly disagree with each other.  Back in the late 1950's a sociologist did a study and book on the "Golden Ghetto" -- and the community studied was St. Louis Park at just the time Al Franken was doing Junior High School.  But unlike what that sociologist predicted, that the children of the golden ghetto would go to medical school or engineering school -- Al Franken went to two schools -- Dudley Riggs crazy place, and Harvard. 

Now let's forget for a moment the cultural, and get into the political.  What is this all about?  Well simply put, it is about reclaiming the Wellstone seat.  It is a matter of populism in the modern tense.  But is also about a division in the Jewish community that needs to be comprehended. 

When Wellstone beat Rudy Boschwitz in 1990, and when Boschwitz unleashed the claim that because Wellstone's wife was a Baptist a few days before the election, and thus Paul was a bad Jew -- Minnesota was profoundly impacted.  It defeated Boschwitz.  And while Boschwitz used some of the same themes in 1996 in his re-match, (one has to see his ads that featured dirty feet in sandals), Boschwitz lost by a larger margin.  So Coleman was the alternative, a long haired jewish, war protester from Long Island who came to Minnesota for Law School, and who also wore sandals, but who had got right with Rove and the Minnesota Republican Establishment, forgot all the DFL issues, and would run against Wellstone, if well funded.  In the process Coleman got right with Likud and particularly with the neo-con Lubavichers.  And while this campaign will play out in 1/3rd Lutheran and 1/3rd Catholic and 1/3rd everything else -- things that signal back to the day when Boschwitz called Wellstone a bad Jew are still at issue. 

Of course Franken is Temple Israel (Reformed) Jewish -- he is a product of their Hebrew School.  When Franken was a student there, I did some classes on the Abolitionist Movement in the mid 60's -- may have even caught him.   

Anyhow, Senator Franken sitting in the Wellstone Seat -- I hope everyone who reads this gets the idea. Who will vote and lay guts on the line so old folk get heating oil and do not freeze -- well that was Wellstone, and it will be Franken.  That is populism.  Never forget the basics that generate the votes. 

For Franken to win at State Convention in late May or early June (don't have official date yet), 2008,  the key will be how people appear and vote in the precinct caucuses next March.  Making the decision one that will honor the party process is profoundly important.  What that means is we have about 4000 precincts, and Franken has to go ground game in all of them, get a chair, get delegates, and move up the convention system.  Believe me whatever happened, we are back to Wellstone 101.   

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[jwp]

Always interesting.

I look forward to your posts.

I like Franken. I wish him well.

[QuickSilver]

Story just posted in the New York Times regarding the Libby trial bloggers. (The paper of record mentions 'Anatomy of Deceit.')

[4jkb4ia]

Good NYT story :)

[jackie]

New York Times, nice :)

[John Lopresti]

Yes, but can he get the Norwiegan bachelor farmer vote

[peter haley]

Didn't franken attend Blake school/ Anyway, I think he will screw it up. Votte Ciresi

[Sara]

test

[Barbara]

Here in Minnesota, we can hardly wait. We have been waiting breathlessly to kick that phony formerly-New York-Jewish-liberal-Democrat now born again-Christian-right wing-conservative-Republican Norm Coleman to the curb. Quick, before the snake can make his next transition.

[Sara]

Fifth attempt to post response, for some reason only on TNH IE is not working for me.

I don't remember Franken as part of the Blake Crowd, I do remember him as the teenager he was from St. Louis Park, who was with the politicals hanging around Riggs Cafe and all when Humphrey was VP and Gene McCarthy was running against Lyndon, and the DFL was having a nervous breakdown. Remember, he left for Harvard in 1968 -- so he was only around summers and holidays after those times. But he was around.

Norwegian Bachelor Farmers will, my guess, take their political lead from the last Norwegian Senator from Minnesota, and Mondale did endorse Franken in December of 2005. They have been -- if not noticed, been doing joint appearances for at least a year in the county DFL Dinners and fairs and all. But since Garrison invented them, maybe one should ask him.