Al Franken is the result, in part, of petulant conservatives who decided that they could not tolerate anyone who doesn’t match their idea of perfection. And so to punish what they called RINOs, they either voted for a third party or sat the election out.
The so-called petulant conservatives moved to the middle and supported George Bush, who ended up doing about as much anyone to grease the skids for Republicans being pushed out. There are still a lot of members here who just do not understand why, how and how badly GWB poisoned the well for republicans. Beware of big-tent centrists and RINOs.