The blurb on the jacket of U.S. Sen. Al Franken’s funny/serious and very personal new book says: “Senator Franken graduated from Harvard College and received his doctorate in right-wing megalomania studies from Trump University.” That pretty much tells you this is not going to be a nonpartisan view of politics.
“Al Franken, Giant of the Senate” is the seventh book by Franken, former comedian, comedy writer for “Saturday Night Live” and host of a radio talk show, whose political inspiration was liberal firebrand Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota.
In his foreword, Franken says the book is the story of his political journey:
“It’s the story of a Midwestern Jewish boy of humble roots (the first in his family to own a pasta maker) who, after a thirty-five-year career in comedy, moved back home to challenge an incumbent senator. It’s the story of how a satirist who had spent a good part of his career heaping scorn and ridicule upon conservative Republican officeholders developed a solid working relationship with (many of) his Republican colleagues. It’s the story of how a novice politician learned not just how to win an election, but how to be good at serving in office: how to find common ground when possible, but also stand his ground when powerful interests come after the middle class. It’s the story of how, after spending a lifetime learning to be funny, I learned how not to be funny.”
Franken’s previous books, including “Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot” were best-sellers, and it looks as though this one will be, too. A starred review in Booklist said: “The compulsively readable text contains laugh-out-loud lines in every chapter. … The fun is a side dish to a serious meal about important policy decisions. … If this is a stalking horse, it’s better than most.”
Franken, who grew up in St. Louis Park, begins with an explanation of how he became a comedian, his years honing his skills with his partner, the late Tom Davis, their time at “SNL,” and why he decided to enter politics in 2008 by challenging Norm Coleman, a former mayor of St. Paul who beat Walter Mondale in 2002 to become one of Minnesota’s U.S. senators. The former vice president was a last-minute candidate after Wellstone was killed in a plane crash 11 days before the general election.
“Paul’s greatest contribution to the progressive cause wasn’t what he accomplished in the Senate (although he accomplished a lot),” Franken writes of Wellstone. “It’s the way he inspired others to take action, and taught them to be effective, and gave them the confidence to stand up and shout about what they believed in.”
Franken’s life changed after reading a profile of Coleman in which the senator said, “To be very blunt, and God watch over Paul’s soul, I am a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone.”
Franken’s immediate thought was: “Somebody’s got to beat this guy.”
Once Franken decided to run, he experienced what he calls The DeHumorizer, which he describes as “a $15 million machine Republicans built using state-of-the-art Russian technology. The DeHumorizer’s function was to take a joke and strip away everything that made it, well, a joke. … With the DeHumorizer stripping away anything that made it clear I was engaging in irony (or hyperbole, or ambiguity, or any number of other comic devices), Republicans could simply present my words to Minnesotans at face value. Without their comedic context, those words often weren’t funny anymore. And in fact, they could appear downright offensive.”
As someone who’d spent most of his adult life in comedy, Franken struggled with how funny to be in his role as senator, and his staff sometimes had to act as DeHumorizers by laying down some rules. He could be funny in the office but only with members of the staff, not in meetings with visitors. It was also OK to be funny on the floor with his colleagues, as long as he wasn’t loud enough to be picked up by the C-SPAN microphone.
After the 2008 general election, Coleman spent months challenging Franken’s win in the courts. It wasn’t until June 30, 2009, that Franken was declared the winner and he actually became a senator July 7. He gives much credit for his victory to his wife, Franni, who, during the campaign, did a short commercial touching on her alcoholism. And he credits his hard-working staff, who straightened out his gaffes (including one that included rolling his eyes when Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell was talking), and sent him notes telling him when he was being a jerk during testimony.
For the most part, Franken is charitable in his writing about his Republican friends and those who don’t agree with him. Except for Ted Cruz, Republican U.S. senator from Texas, to whom he devotes an entire chapter.
“Ted Cruz isn’t just wrong about everything,” Franken writes. “He’s impossible to work with. And he doesn’t care that he’s impossible to work with. And that’s why, when the choice was between Ted Cruz (who was a sitting member of the United States Senate) and Donald Trump (who was Donald Trump), establishment Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to rally behind Cruz. Even if you like what he stands for, the most he’ll ever be able to accomplish is being an obnoxious wrench in the gears of government.”
In the book’s last chapters, Franken writes about what an honor it is to serve Minnesotans. He acknowledges things don’t look good for Democrats now, but he reminds readers this has happened before, and he exhorts those on the left to keep fighting and “keep your head up.”
