Are Republicans Scared of Al Franken?

[DonViejo]

SNL star-turned-senator isn't drawing much early GOP opposition.

By Michael Catalini
Updated: January 9, 2013 | 8:57 a.m.
January 9, 2013 | 9:00 a.m.

After winning election by the narrowest of margins in 2008, Sen. Al Franken looked like one of the GOP’s most inviting Senate targets in 2014. But instead, the party is facing the reality that Franken is proving to be a much more resilient opponent than expected, and his uncontroversial first term is raising doubts about whether Republicans can even recruit a first-tier candidate against the former Saturday Night Live funnyman.

"You can't play handball in an open field. At this point there's been no candidate," said former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, who lost to Franken in the 2008 race. "He's been pretty much invisible. In that sense he hasn't created a lot of enemies. I don't know if that's his strategy, but it's a pretty good strategy if it is.”

The list of potential, formidable candidates is short. Coleman, in an interview with National Journal, categorically said he wasn’t going to run for the Senate in 2014, denying the GOP one of its best-known possible challengers. Rep. Erik Paulsen, a popular House member from the Twin Cities suburbs, telegraphed his own hesitance about jumping into the Senate race on a local radio show. Coleman touted Rep. John Kline, another swing-district Republican, but he has passed up previous statewide bids in favor of building up tenure in the House. And Rep. Michele Bachmann, who would be formidable in a primary, would be the Democrats’ dream challenger, given her high unfavorables even back home. She barely won re-election in a solidly-Republican House district in 2012.

What’s clear is that Minnesota Republicans are wary of jumping head first into the contest, despite the obvious opportunities against Franken. After the 2012 elections, Republican Senate candidates Shelley Moore Capito and former South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds immediately announced their campaigns against Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Tim Johnson. By contrast, there’s barely been a peep from potential Franken challengers.

-snip-

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/are-republicans-scared-of-al-franken-20130109

[reteachinwi]

1. Volunteer losers

http://left.mn/2012-minnesota-election-results/minnesota-us-senate-results/

[a kennedy]

2. Thanks for this site...

awesome info from it.

[yellowcanine]

3. Most are scared of Grover N. and their own shadows, so I would say yes.

[GoCubsGo]

6. Yep. They're pretty much afraid of everything.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

4. He's been an uncommonly hard-working and studious Senator

Especially when you consider his background. Franken gives almost no interviews to the national media, and he simply NEVER appears on cable news mud-wrestling matches. Even Republicans say that Franken is a hard-working and basically pleasant colleague.

[phleshdef]

5. Republicans underestimated Al Franken because of his comedic career.

They never bothered to figure out that he started out his professional life with a degree in political science and obviously never bothered to listen to his political talk radio show.

[GoCubsGo]

8. Yes, and they were completely oblivious to...

...to the fact that he was a fellow in Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. And, as Joe Biden would say, that's a big fucking deal. He was more qualified to be a Senator than pretty much anyone in their party a that stage in their careers.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. Yes

[DFW]

9. I would be.

The last kind of incumbent I would want to run against is one who is smart, likeable, effective, a good track record, and has such a rapier-like sense of humor that you don't even know he has skewered you until three hours after he did it.

[gkhouston]

10. Invisible? In the sense that's he's not bloviating on the TV every other night, yeah,

he's invisible. He's "invisible" because he's busy elsewhere, actually representing his constituency. I would think that would be a plus for and in Minnesota.

[rufus dog]

11. Yes they are, because he is good enough, he is smart enough, and dog gone it, people like him.

[NewJeffCT]

12. I think Bachmann should resign her seat now, and start running

against Franken.

But, is Tim Pawlenty a possibility?

[Sunlei]

13. Republicans are afraid of everything, similar to cockroaches

[11 Bravo]

14. It makes me smile to imagine that Limbaugh's last waking thought, every single night, is ...

"Al Franken is a United States Senator, and I'm a doughy, loud-mouthed, lying, junkie pedophile".