Politico ran a somewhat provocative story this week by Bill Scher, “The Case for Vice President Al Franken/
This is not a joke: Hillary needs someone like Franken if she’s going to beat Trump.”
Here’s the pitch.
With Hillary Clinton’s grip on the Democratic nomination firm, and Trump on track to insult his way to the Republican nomination, Democrats will want their vice presidential choice to accomplish the following:
1. Prevent Bernie Sanders’ energized left-wing youth from snubbing Clinton and flocking to the Green Party;
2. Protect the Rust Belt from Trump’s blustery charms; and
3. Navigate an unprecedented media circus dominated by Trump’s barrage of taunts.
That set of criteria marks a shift from what Democrats were initially expecting.
Steer then goes through a process of elimination, considering various VP contenders among Democratic governors, and members of Congress before arriving at Franken.
What most unnerves Democrats about facing Trump is the sheer unpredictability of a candidate who gleefully breaks all rules of decency and decorum. He laid waste to Bush and Rubio, getting in their heads and taking them off their game. Clinton would certainly do her best to avoid their plight and remain above the fray, but Trump’s capacity to turn every news cycle into a smoldering train wreck would test any campaign’s ability to remain on-message.
Franken has worked hard to prove he is a detail-oriented, issues-driven senator, not a political novelty act. But he has decades of experience skewering factually challenged conservatives.
Political junkies will want to read this piece.
Or you can listen to Scher discuss his article in this segment from Minnesota Public Radio (“Is Sen. Al Franken the logical choice for vice president?“).
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I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!
Pretty funny. The folks who thought Sarah Palin was unqualified to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency apparently have no problem with this comedian.
Perhaps you need to look take into account the fact that he’s been a serious politician for quite a while now, both in his state legislature and in the U.S. Senate, where he was reelected to a second term. No joke!
Is it too late to draft Bill Murray or Will Ferrell?
SNL…one heartbeat away.
Hi Ken,
Please show us examples of US Sen. Al Franken mimicking these traits of brilliant Sarah Palin. Did you actually vote for McCain/Palin? Last time we checked, Franken didn’t Quit his job as Senator because that evil gotcha media was out to get him……. dern them libral jernalists.
1. “As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.” –Sarah Palin, explaining why Alaska’s proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, interview with CBS’s Katie Couric, Sept. 24, 2008 (Watch video clip)
2. “Mr. President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.” –Sarah Palin, on how President Obama should deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, CPAC speech, March 8, 2014
3. “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.” –-Sarah Palin, in a message posted on Facebook about Obama’s health care plan, Aug.
4. “All of ’em, any of ’em that have been in front of me over all these years.” –Sarah Palin, unable to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008 (Watch video clip)
5. “Well, let’s see. There’s ? of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but ?” –Sarah Palin, unable to name a Supreme Court decision she disagreed with other than Roe vs. Wade, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008 (Watch video clip)
6. “‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!'” –a Tweet sent by Sarah Palin in response to being ridiculed for inventing the word “refudiate,” proudly mistaking her illiteracy for literary genius, July 18, 2010
7. “He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.” –Sarah Palin, botching the history of Paul Revere’s midnight ride, June 3, 2011
8. “But obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies.” –Sarah Palin, after being asked how she would handle the current hostilities between the two Koreas, interview on Glenn Beck’s radio show, Nov. 24, 2010
9. “We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn’t that ironic?” –Sarah Palin, admitting that her family used to get treatment in Canada’s single-payer health care system, despite having demonized such government-run programs as socialized medicine that will lead to death-panel-like rationing, March 6, 2010
10. “Ohh, good, thank you, yes.” –Sarah Palin, after a notorious Canadian prank caller, posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, complimented her on the documentary about her life, Hustler’s “Nailin Paylin,” Nov. 1, 2008 (Read more about the prank call, watch the video and see the transcript)
http://www.adn.com/sites/default/files/Palin%20reports2.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/20/sarah-palins-son-track-arrested-at-her-home-girlfriend-concerned-he-would-shoot-himself/
Most of those quotes you give from Palin sound like they were written for Saturday Night Live & Tina Fey. But I know Palin actually said them in what passes for real life with her. If McCain had tried, he would not have found a dumber veep candidate.
Judith,
Yes. Supposedly, McCain couldn’t stand Palin. Who would?
Didn’t Al Franklin have a radio show at one time?
Franken left SNL more than 20 years ago. He didn’t even make an onscreen appearance at the show’s 40th anniversary special. Don’t know how how many 20-something’s would associate Franken with SNL at this point. My pick for ideal SNL running mate would be Kate McKinnon. She plays the imposter Hillary. Since Hillary’s biggest problem is with honesty and transparency, Kate can serve as the truthful component of the ticket.
Allen N., here’s some food for ya. (Hillary paid me $10 million to post on Ian Lind’s web site)
http://bluenationreview.com/hillary-clinton-most-truthful-candidate/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/bernie-s/
http://www.telegram.com/article/20160329/NEWS/160329201
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/28/hillary-clinton-honest-transparency-jill-abramson
This is a job for Dennis Hopper.
Being a comedian disqualifies people? What about Bedtime for Bonzo?
“But he has decades of experience skewering factually challenged conservatives.”
But is Trump a conservative?
The folks who thought Sarah Palin was unqualified to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency apparently have no problem with this comedian.
Sarah Palin bounced around between five different colleges before graduating. The first was the University of Hawaii at Hilo, the second Hawaii Pacific University.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin#College
Al Franken went to Harvard. He majored in politics, and graduated cum laude in 1973.
Compare and decide.
More seriously, here is a profile on Franken.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/07/20/enter-laughing
Franken is from St. Louis Park, Minnesota. With a population of roughly 50,000 persons, it has produced a remarkable number of highly accomplished individuals, especially in the creative arts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Park,_Minnesota
In the New Yorker article, Franken attributes this pattern of success to a creosote plant feeding into the local drinking water. The article points out that most of these individuals are Jewish, and this might be part of a bigger pattern (e.g., Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman, was from Duluth, MN.)
There has long been speculation whether or not William Shakespeare was actually the author of the plays attributed to him. The reasoning is that an obscure, middle-class theatre director from the provinces who had no more than a high-school education could not have been the greatest playwright in the English language. First of all, not that many people in the 1500s went to high school. Second, high school was vastly more rigorous in the Renaissance. (Students back then had to learn roughly 150 figures of speech — simile, analogy, etc. — as part of their classical education. Today, even most graduate students in literature probably know less than one dozen.) But Shakespeare might fit the profile of creative achievement perfectly, as did Leonardo da Vinci, which is someone from the provinces who is exposed to a little bit of high-quality education (especially excellent libraries), but is largely self-taught. In the American context, this pattern applies to inventors like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, the Wright brothers, etc., and to seminal thinkers like the philosopher John Dewey, and to entertainers like Bob Dylan.
There is a 2013 documentary on the CERN large hadron collider. The two main scientists profiled are Stanford professors, one a Jew from Eastern Europe (Hungary), the other the son of Iranian immigrants to Western Europe (France). They are not wealthy, but they come from sub-cultures (Iranian professionals, Jews) and from national cultures (Hungarians, French) who place an enormous value on culture and education. Also, they have a diasporic status, so they are not rooted. (This is also the profile of the typical Syrian refugee to Europe today, and many of the economic migrants. It could be a missed opportunity not to accept migrants who fit this profile.)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34346180
The girl migrant who travelled alone from Iran to Greece
24 September 2015 Last updated at 16:10 BST
A girl migrant has told the BBC how she travelled alone from Iran to Greece for two weeks, despite being just 12 years old.
The girl, who told the BBC’s Matthew Price she is from Afghanistan and was living in Iran with her parents, said she had chosen to head for Europe because the Iranian government “has very bad behaviour with us”.
“I saw my situation, I can’t go to college, I can’t study, you’re not a human, you are worse than animals even,” she said.