I emailed my friend Chris Truscott this afternoon, asking for Sen. Norm Coleman's immediate post-election statement. With breathtaking speed he found me the article shown above. The methodical, documented, mandatory recount has now been certified; Al Franken won by approximately 1% of 1% of the ballots cast. Hallelujah.
During an early phase of the campaign, Republican bloggers sought to impose a Dukakis-in-tank vibe, so that--rather than having a thoughtful public discussion--Franken's candidacy would be dismissed sight unseen. Franken was stupid, crazy, not funny, foul-mouthed and deeply offensive to simple church-going Minnesotans, went the meme. I argued that two print articles which many then viewed as 'profoundly troubling' ought not be viewed as at all troubling.
I never listened to Franken's Air America radio show, but have long considered him very funny and a gifted, daring rhetorician. While Erik Paulsen successfully marketed himself as a reliably-brain-dead fuddy-duddy, Franken doesn't so harken back to Paulsen's eternal 1950s. Franken was shaped by the 1960s liberationist culture and Simon-and-Garfunkel patriotism. I feel some nausea--embarrasment, even--at being represented in Congress by the imaginationless, daughter-thrusting Paulsen; I'll be proud to be Senatored by Franken. And nowhere moreso than on the cultural front.
On the trail in Blue Earth, Minnesota in April 2008 with
opponent--later supporter--Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
**
Truscott jumped ship on the Franken candidacy when he concluded that Al was unelectable. (He was damn near right, we now know.) During the campaign I'd occasionally hear people argue that their DFL-to-the-core Aunt Gladys in Zumbrota could never-in-a-million-years vote for a man who once allowed his byline to appear in Playboy Magazine (that hardcore smut rag). Enthusiastic purveyors of the Aunt Gladys meme often allowed the sentiment to bleed a bit; pretty soon it was 'Aunt Gladys in Zumbrota and I are deeply offended by Al Franken's existence on the planet.' A quarter-minute's chest-thumping later, the argument had become 'Al Franken is a profoundly offensive person, to Minnesotans.'
When I'd encounter this line of thought, I would try to get the person to state clearly whether they themselves were offended--or whether they were simply pretending to be offended, in solidarity with some marginalized silent majority of eternally-disregarded Zumbrotans. In Truscott's defense, I could never get him to argue 'Al Franken offends me, personally.' And when I'd hear Truscott representing the entirely likable SWS Dean Barkley on MPR, I'd mutter, 'Chris Truscott is good!'
At one point during the campaign I sought candidates' positions on Darfur. Sen. Coleman replied promptly with a thoughtful position. That was cool.
Congratulations, Al. Sorry if I son-thrust a bit:
