Franken’s PAC a Prelude to Senate Bid
Roll Call Staff
He still wants you to send your money to him, Al Franken.
But unlike when he used to solicit money for himself from the “Saturday Night Live” news desk, now he wants it for his new political action committee, Midwest Values PAC — and possibly even for a 2008 Senate bid.
“This is using my sort of prominence — leveraging that to get people involved in doing grass-roots stuff,” Franken explained in an interview last week, shortly after he wrapped up his three-hour-a-day radio show on Air America.
And is raising $168,000 in 2005 and dispersing it to Democratic candidates a way to seed a Senate bid?
“I think that’s a fair inference to draw,” said the Minnesota native who recently moved his family, and his radio show, from New York City to the Gopher State in advance of a possible Senate race. “Obviously if I’m going to run in 2008 I will have to have done certain kinds of things but if I don’t, I might as well do something good. This is really about getting people ... a progressive infrastructure built.”
Midwest Values, which Franken created in late October 2005, has so far given money to three Democratic Congressional candidates in Minnesota, and to Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ex-Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas), who is challenging Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), and Francine Busby, the Democratic candidate in the special election to replace disgraced ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.).
The PAC will also donate money to Wellstone Action, the Minnesota-based training program for Democratic activists formed by the surviving children of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), and will help out candidates for state and local offices in the Gopher State, Franken said.
Celebrity candidates are always helped and hindered by their fame, and Franken would be no exception. But Minnesota Democrats give Franken credit for being more than just a Hollywood-type who likes to talk politics occasionally.
“He has been a tremendous friend to Democrats and Democratic organizations out in Minnesota for the last four or five years,” said one Democratic organizer in Minnesota who did not want to be named because he did not want to be seen as endorsing any particular candidate for Senate.
Franken helped Wellstone on his 2002 re-election before the Senator died in a plane crash in the closing weeks of the campaign.
“In the last two years, he has been very active doing fundraisers, get-out-the-vote efforts, reaching out to Democrats,” the source added. “He’s a very interesting potential candidate.”
Franken says no one can say he woke up one day and suddenly decided to run for Senate.
“I’ve actually known these local folks for a while,” he said. “I campaigned for Wellstone a lot. Last cycle I did campaigning around the state; I raised money for the House Caucus. I made sure when I went to Boston [for the 2004 Democratic National Convention] that I spoke to the Minnesota delegation. I plan to try to be a delegate to the [state] convention myself” this year.
Franken understands that wooing the delegates who nominate Senate and Congressional candidates is key in Minnesota.
Minnesota’s political parties have a system in which, via local caucuses, delegates are selected to district and eventually state conventions where candidates are endorsed. A contested primary occurs only if someone chooses to challenge that endorsement by running in the September primary.
“I will definitely try to get the endorsement,” Franken said about his hypothetical Senate bid. “I haven’t really thought through whether that’s something that I would abide by. I will do everything I can to get it.”
But before such party machinations come into play, the fundamental question surrounding a Franken candidacy is whether he will be taken seriously and whether he could unseat a professional politician such as Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.).
“The proof of whether you can lead is not about your celebrity, it’s about your fundamental beliefs and whether you can take those out to the people and connect with them,” said Minnesota-based consultant John Wodele.
Potts: Congress Must Not Allow Lobbying Efforts to Block Pro-Consumer Financial Planning Bill
March 18, 12:35 p.m.
Quietly hidden amid debates over which agency should house a consumer financial protection agency is a simple consumer financial protection proposal. It would safeguard Main Street residents from malpractice by people claiming to be financial planners. Read Full Article
Roll Call Video Channels
