Al Franken, Seriously
By RUSSELL SHORTO
Published: March 21, 2004
He has come to occupy a unique position at the crossroads of the political, media and entertainment worlds and is aggressively exploiting it, personally hooking up prominent figures from all three arenas in the effort to unite against Bush. ''Al has become a rallying point for Democrats,'' said Paul Begala, the former Clinton adviser and now host of CNN's ''Crossfire.'' ''There are a few of them: Senator Clinton, President Clinton, and now Al Franken is another. The thing about this year is, 'liberal' and 'wimp' have become decoupled. Al has been one of the real sparks of that. Liberals are ready to fight.''
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A good indication of the kind of popularity Franken has achieved among partisan Democrats came at a Kerry rally in Nashua during Franken's New Hampshire swing. In the wake of the Iowa victory, the candidate was fiery and the crowd boisterous. After the speech, the senator came down off the stage and made his way along the bleachers. People cheered, pretty forcefully. Next, Senator Ted Kennedy, who had joined him onstage, came along; he was right up against the barrier, so people could reach out and pat the bearish shoulders. It was a hard-core crowd -- men with working-class faces, gray-haired women in ''I'm a Health Care Voter'' T-shirts -- and there was some real feeling in the place, a blend of hope and nostalgia. You could see Kennedy lighting up from the energy.
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Some of Franken's recent behind-the-scenes actions are at least as interesting as his public performances and show the depth of his seriousness. Last fall, when Dean seemed the inevitable nominee before a single primary vote had been cast, Franken was troubled that John Kerry was being written off. ''I liked Dean, but I also think Kerry is just a really smart, capable man,'' he told me. ''I'd noticed that he was very good in a small gathering, so I thought, What if I invite some opinion makers over to hear him?'' On Dec. 4, an impressive collection of the media elite and assorted other notables -- Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker, Frank Rich of The New York Times, Howard Fineman and Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, Jim Kelly of Time, Jeff Greenfield of CNN, Eric Alterman of The Nation, Richard Cohen of The Washington Post, Jacob Weisberg of Slate and others, including, as eminence grise, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. -- responded to his call and had a little powwow with Kerry at the Upper West Side apartment of Franken and his wife, Franni.
''The whole thing was odd, I would say, because people didn't know why they were there,'' Kelly said. ''But I think the idea was to put John Kerry into the belly of the beast. It may have been the actual beginning of the new approach he took -- 'I'm going to stay in this room and take every question you throw at me.''' Alterman grilled Kerry on his vote on Iraq, and he gave a long, tortured answer. Then he was asked about it a second time. ''By the third go-round, the answer was getting shorter and more relevant,'' Kelly said.
''It was a really interesting event,'' Alter said. ''A lot of these people hadn't actually met Kerry before. Al wanted them to get to know him. It was an example of him playing a sort of intermediary role in the nexus of politics, media and entertainment.''
The next time Franken saw Kerry was at the rally in Nashua, seven weeks later. Things had changed significantly; Kerry was considered a new and improved candidate and now looked almost unbeatable. The senator took Franken aside, and they talked for a few minutes. ''I told him I'm taking credit for the turnaround,'' Franken told me. ''He said, 'I knew you would.'''