Backers in St. Paul yesterday with Senator-elect Al Franken, who has been wonkish during his campaign and recount battle.
(Craig Lassig/Associated Press)
In Senate, Franken hopes to leave the laughs behind
Former comic plans to work for credibility
Backers in St. Paul yesterday with Senator-elect Al Franken, who has been wonkish during his campaign and recount battle.
(Craig Lassig/Associated Press)
ST. PAUL - Now that Al Franken is headed for the Senate, which Franken will show up in Washington?
Will it be the passionate, sometimes angry liberal who hurled playground insults at Rush Limbaugh as an author and radio host? Or will it be the cautious, serious Franken who buttoned himself down the minute he hit the campaign trail?
Bet on the latter.
Franken arrives in Washington next week to claim a seat that stood vacant for half a year while Minnesota judges deliberated over legal issues in the close race, which Franken ultimately won by 312 votes. He received an early sendoff yesterday at the state Capitol, where several hundred supporters cheered his victory.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Franken said he would style himself after former senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Bradley, Democrats who gained fame before joining the Senate - one as first lady, the other as a pro basketball star.
“Both came to the Senate with some celebrity and some skepticism from people on the Hill,’’ Franken said. “They both put their heads down and did the work and won over their colleagues by not running to the camera.’’
Franken the politician has been far different from the funnyman who made his name as a “Saturday Night Live’’ writer and cast member.
He talks at length about holding down health costs by making sure people have access to nutritious food, places to exercise, and havens from violence. And he can go head-to-head with any policy wonk in discussing cleaner energy.
It’s not that Franken was entirely dull during some 18 months of campaigning. He cracked a safe joke here and there but stuck mostly to policy in speeches. The humor mainly was confined to one-on-one interactions and was rarer still when cameras were rolling.
“I was amazed how unfunny he was on the campaign trail,’’ said Darrell West, an officer at the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank and author of “
Franken entered politics through a side door. The best-selling author of “Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot’’ and several other political satires entrenched himself in policy debates as a liberal host of an Air America network radio show. He gained a loyal following by sharply challenging - and mocking - the administration of President George W. Bush.
When he moved back to Minnesota in 2005, he made the rounds at small Democratic gatherings and parceled out money to local candidates through a political action committee.
But some in the party were uneasy about his chances in a run against Coleman. Franken’s long career as an entertainer had produced a mountain of bawdy jokes, television skits, and written screeds that were prime fodder for the opposition.
During the long campaign, the serious Franken dominated. Still, almost every news report about Franken includes footage from or references to “SNL’’ skits from the 1980s, something he’s learned to accept.
“I’m very proud of my career as a comedian and a satirist,’’ Franken said. “But these are very different jobs.’’
Said West, the Brookings scholar: “Washington is a place that takes itself too seriously. It could really use humor to lighten the partisanship that overlays every policy issue right now.’’
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