Why President Al Franken Isn't a Joke
[font color=330099]Note: I am omitting the first two paragraphs of this story because they could be considered as bashing Democrats which is not my intention. My apologies in that regard, but I thought that remainder of the article was worth reading.[/font]
But there’s one Democratic senator whom everybody knows and almost everybody likes, irrespective of party, and that’s Al Franken, of Minnesota. Franken is well known, of course, not because of his years in the Senate, but for his years on Saturday Night Live, where he often played a character named Al Franken. The character called Al Franken would occasionally say things that a Senate candidate named Al Franken would not. Nor would the Senate candidate Al Franken necessarily want every word he uttered when brainstorming with other writers on S.N.L. to become public. Franken’s opponent in his first Senate campaign, in 2008, tried to make an issue of all this—thinking, or at least hoping, that the clean-living people of Minnesota might find the whole business a bit postmodern.
It almost worked. Franken had to go through a recount and a state Supreme Court battle before taking his seat several months late. He was comfortably re-elected in 2014.
This is Al Franken’s moment. Four years from now, he’ll be 69, younger than Trump or Hillary during the 2016 campaign. Four years after that, and he’ll be too old. As recently as, say, six months ago, I would have said that, however much I might admire Al Franken, the idea of a comedian (a comedian on purpose) as president was beneath the dignity of the United States. But we have learned more recently that nothing is beneath the dignity of the United States. The Trump dispensation changes the rules and opens up the presidency to all sorts of people who previously would have been thought unqualified. Baseball players, philosophers, plumbers, TV commentators. All it takes is $50 million or so and nothing better to do.
I think it will still be necessary, or at least useful, for the candidate who isn’t just another political hack to have some independent source of fame or respect, as John McCain had his heroism in Vietnam. When Dr. Ben Carson was introduced to the world as a pediatric neurosurgeon—someone who cuts open and repairs children’s brains—I thought, how bad could he be, if that is how he devotes his days on earth. But I found out.
Read more: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/02/why-an-al-franken-2020-bid-isnt-a-joke
= new reply since forum marked as read
anticipation.. it was so close with norm coleman.
Oh, and I never saw him on SNL.. I just know him as Senator.. so what a journey he's had!
