Al Franken, Giant of the Senate Read online

  A few minutes later, the team decided to come to me for final approval of this quote:

  I understand that some people have seen my satirical writings as representing my views in real life. They don’t. In real life, I’ve been married to my wife Franni for 32 years, and have two wonderful children, a daughter and a son. I have always respected women in the home and the workplace and I will work to represent them in the U.S. Senate—something that Norm Coleman hasn’t been doing for the last six years.

  At 7:39, Andy returned to the email thread with bad news: “Al hates it.” He relayed a suggestion from me:

  I’m proud of my career as a satirist, which doesn’t mean every joke I’ve ever told was funny or, indeed, appropriate. In real life, though, I’ve been married for 32 years. Franni and I are proud of our son and daughter. I respect women—both at home and in the workplace. And I will work incredibly hard to represent them in the Senate—something Norm Coleman hasn’t been doing for the last six years.

  A minute later, one of the consultants: “I understand why he wants to say he’s proud of his career as a satirist, but keep in mind, there is a large segment of the electorate for whom the only aspects of that career they will know about are the ‘rape’ and ‘Playboy’ aspects. That introductory language strikes me as satisfying for Al, but dangerous with older women—voters who know the least about Al’s career, and those most likely to be offended.”

  And another consultant, getting directly to the point: “Andy, does he hate it strategically or personally? I think we are in real trouble here and need to say something that affirms Al’s respect for women. We are about to miss the opportunity to do so pre-convention.”

  Fifteen minutes passed. We heard from the consultants, and from the DSCC, and eventually I signed off on this, with the word “regret” as suggested by Chuck Schumer himself:

  I’m proud of my career as a satirist, which doesn’t mean every joke I’ve ever told was funny—and I regret that some of them have caused offense. In real life, though, I’ve been married for 32 years. Franni and I are proud of our son and daughter. I respect women—both at home and in the workplace. And I will work incredibly hard to represent them in the Senate—something Norm Coleman hasn’t been doing for the last six years.

  At 7:56, two consultants weighed in simultaneously. One said, “Almost all of them have caused offense… and he really doesn’t regret it (except now). This is a dangerous half apology. If we do it it’s because we need to save ourselves now… but we will be dealing with which writings caused ‘regret’ for a very long time.”

  The other: “Send it!”

  Finally, after several more phone calls, and with reporters’ deadlines approaching (or perhaps past, as it was well after 8 p.m.), we settled on this:

  I’m proud of my career as a satirist, which doesn’t mean every joke I’ve ever told was funny, or, indeed, appropriate. I understand and regret that people have been legitimately offended by some of the things I’ve written. In real life, though, I’ve been married for 32 years. Franni and I are proud of our son and daughter. I respect women—in both my personal and professional life. And I will work incredibly hard to represent them in the Senate—something Norm Coleman hasn’t been doing for the last six years.

  Jess sent it around, writing, “Floor’s open for 5 minutes. Call if you think this will end the campaign.”

  “DFL convention begins with Franken fending off criticism,” read the Star Tribune headline the morning of Friday, June 6, as delegates began to arrive in Rochester. The story included our heavily workshopped statement, and also a quote from Norm Coleman, who was clearly enjoying the whole situation:

  While Al Franken was joking about raping women and a host of other degrading and humiliating jokes throughout his career, I was in the Minnesota attorney general’s office working to throw rapists behind bars. I was in the mayor’s office working with advocates for battered women.

  But I didn’t have time to worry about him. I had my hands full with the convention. Everyone wanted me to do something to reassure delegates. But it wasn’t clear what that something was.

  I felt worse than ever. I felt like people whose respect meant a lot to me had begun to feel like I was a terrible person. I thought about Eliot Spitzer again, and about all the people he had let down because he couldn’t stop his own flaws from sabotaging his desire to do good. I thought about Paul Wellstone and wondered if I was letting him down, not to mention all the people who had trusted me to carry on his legacy (or at least win back his seat).

  On the way down to Rochester, I got a call. Schriock.

  “Forget about whatever anybody has told you,” she said. “What do you think about this?”

  I sighed miserably. “I feel bad that people feel bad about this, and I want to apologize for that.”

  “Then that’s what we’re going to do.”

  I spent the afternoon and evening working delegates. And that night, Schriock, Andy, and I stayed up late working on the “closing argument” speech I’d give immediately before the delegates voted. It felt like the whole campaign was coming down to what I’d say on that stage.

  I felt inadequate, guilty, confused, unworthy. But I didn’t have time for a dark night of the soul. I had about an hour. Maybe two if I had one of those energy drinks. I had to suck it up. I had to stop feeling sorry for myself. I had to pull myself out of the shame spiral and confront this head-on.

  All campaign long, I’d avoided apologizing for things I’d said or written, because it felt like doing so would mean apologizing for everything I’d done over forty years in comedy, ever since Tom and I were performing at chapel back at Blake. To say I was sorry for writing a joke was to sell out my career, to sell out who I’d been my entire life.

  And I wasn’t sorry that I had written “Porn-O-Rama” or pitched that stupid Lesley Stahl joke at two in the morning. I was just doing my job. But running for office is a different job. When you run for office, you’re asking people to stand with you and work for you and believe in you. And you’re making a promise that it’ll be worth it. People had to know I understood that.

  It was nearly two in the morning when Andy hit “send” on the final draft, after which he had to start writing two more speeches: a victory speech that I would deliver after I had won the endorsement—and a concession that I would deliver if I lost it.

  Saturday. Endorsement day.

  I took the stage to what I can only describe as nervously enthusiastic applause.

  “I’m Al Franken,” I began. “And I’m going to beat Norm Coleman.”

  I talked about a few of the people I had met along the way who were there in the room as delegates. Sitting with the Blue Earth County delegation was Casey Carmody, the MSU-Mankato student who had told me he sold his blood plasma to pay for tuition. Among the tiny delegation from Kanabec County was Kathy Kawalek, a nurse who had told me she saw elderly patients rushed into her intensive care unit because they couldn’t afford their medications. And there from Anoka County was Sergeant Sam Scott, whom I’d met on a USO tour in Iraq in 2006. “Many of the men and women he served with are still there,” I told the crowd. “Some aren’t coming home.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “That’s why I’m doin’ this. For Casey. For Kathy. For Sam. For the people of Minnesota. That’s who I wanna work for. And that’s what this election is about.”

  Another deep breath.

  “That’s not exactly what this past week has been about,” I continued. “I’ve had some tough conversations this week.”

  The tension in the room was incredible. The delegates didn’t know what was coming, but they knew that whatever it was, whatever they’d been waiting for, whatever they’d staked their hopes on, it was coming right now.

  “It kills me that things I said and wrote sent a message to some of my friends in this room and people in this state that they can’t count on me to be a champion for women, a champion for all Minnesotans, in this campaig
n and in the Senate.”

  And then: “I’m sorry for that.”

  Sitting up in the rafters where she could observe the crowd, Stephanie Schriock said there was the briefest moment of absolute silence, and then she heard—heard—the collective exhale of some thirteen hundred delegates. And then they stood and cheered. It was the first time I’d ever gotten a standing ovation based entirely on a crowd’s overwhelming sense of relief. The applause drowned out the next line, but I kept going:

  Because that’s not who I am.

  I’m a husband—married to my favorite person on earth, Franni, for thirty-two years. I’m a father of a son and a daughter who we taught to respect everyone and who we’re incredibly proud of.

  And for thirty-five years I was a writer. I wrote a lot of jokes. Some of them weren’t funny. Some of them were inappropriate. Some of them were downright offensive.

  I understand that.

  And I understand that the people of Minnesota deserve a senator who won’t say things that make them uncomfortable.

  But I’m in this race because there are some people in Washington who could afford to feel a little less comfortable.

  And that’s what I’m gonna do.

  Now I had the audience behind me. Now I could have some fun. I lit into the oil companies, and the drug companies, and the insurance companies. I declared that it was time to stop waiting for health care reform and get it done.

  And I promised that the first person I was going to make a little uncomfortable was Norm Coleman.

  It was in the delegates’ hands now. But we could sense that something had changed for the better. A weight had been lifted.

  As the first ballots were being counted, it was clear that I had surpassed the 60 percent I needed to win (although not by much). Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer graciously offered to have the convention endorse me by acclamation (so that no one would need to know how close it had been). I never had to look at Andy’s draft of a concession speech, which is good, because, exhausted and bitter, he had larded it with profanity.

  But it wasn’t just that I had survived the convention (although “survived” was almost certainly the correct verb). As Schriock later told me, “It wasn’t just what you said, it was the way you said it. I think the delegates realized, ‘We get the candidate we want.’” They understood how badly I wanted to win, how passionate I was about doing good—as Paul would say, about improving people’s lives. Having won them over in the most excruciating manner imaginable, they were with me for good. Schriock says we never had a base problem after that, never had to worry about finding people to volunteer, to knock on doors, to make phone calls.

  That night I went to bed early. Schriock took the team out to get steaks and cocktails. Everyone was exhausted, barely coherent, their kidneys damaged irreparably by energy drinks. “Oh my God,” Jess moaned. “Food! Actual food! On plates!” Meanwhile, Andy was falling asleep in a bowl of mashed potatoes.

  And then, the next morning, we all went back to the Twin Cities and got back to work.

  Election day was 149 days away.

  Chapter 17

  My First Powwow

  When I first started running, I was almost completely ignorant about Indian country.

  But we have eleven reservations in Minnesota, and I knew enough to know that tribes in our state and all around the country face enormous problems. These problems can seem so big and so numerous that people in a position to do something about them often give up. Not Paul Wellstone. Paul had been the last Minnesota senator to serve on the Indian Affairs Committee. In that tradition, I wanted our tribes to be well represented in the Senate.

  Two days after I announced my candidacy, I visited the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (or Ojibwe) in northeastern Minnesota. Karen Diver, Fond du Lac’s no-nonsense but affable chairwoman, was puzzled that I had come up to meet them so early in the campaign, instead of waiting to check that box in the last couple weeks before the election, as almost every candidate does. I said I wanted to learn about Indians.

  Karen began by talking about sovereignty. The Constitution recognizes Indian tribes as sovereign nations. Now, you’ll be shocked to hear this, but there’s no way to sugarcoat it: Historically, the United States has not always respected tribal sovereignty.

  Karen told me about a recent study on sovereignty by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, which concluded that tribes who govern themselves do better than those dictated to by the federal government.

  I found the study online and called Karen a few days later to discuss it. She was surprised I’d actually gone home and read it. So one of the first things I learned about Indians is that they don’t expect much from politicians.

  During the campaign, I visited most of our reservations and attended roundtables with native leaders. But it wasn’t until August 2008 that I was invited to a powwow by the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. The Red Lake Reservation is a good 250 miles north of the Twin Cities and is the poorest twelve hundred square miles in our state, with tremendously high rates of unemployment. Its population of around fifty-one hundred has seen more than its share of tragedy. In 2005, a fifteen-year-old boy shot and killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend, then went to his old school and killed seven others before committing suicide.

  But a powwow is a happy occasion, a celebration of cultural heritage. Excited, I sat down with Peggy Flanagan, a half-Ojibwe twenty-something Minneapolis school board member who was advising me on Indian issues (and who is now a Minnesota state legislator). Peggy had about half an hour to prepare me for my first powwow.

  “Okay, don’t call them ‘costumes.’ They’re wearing ‘regalia.’”

  “I wasn’t planning on calling them anything,” I said. “But okay. ‘Regalia.’”

  “And don’t dance,” Peggy told me definitively.

  “Don’t dance?”

  “Don’t dance.”

  “Why shouldn’t I dance?”

  “Governor Pawlenty danced a couple years ago, and they haven’t stopped making fun of him,” she said with half a grin.

  “Okay. Don’t dance.”

  “Don’t dance. Now, Indians volunteer for military service at a higher rate than any other group in the country.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “And they respect their warriors. So, the drums will start, and then the warriors will lead in their traditional regalia.”

  “Regalia. I got it.” I nodded.

  “But they’ll also be wearing their veterans’ caps and carrying flags.”

  “Right. Sure.”

  “And after the veterans, the others will come out in their regalia, and everyone dances around the circle to the drums, and they’ll dance a number of dances.”

  “And should I dance?”

  Peggy knew me well enough to ignore this. “Now, after the dances, the drums will stop, and everyone will go sit in the bleachers, and Chairman Jourdain will introduce you.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, what do you plan to say?” she asked.

  I realized that I hadn’t given that a lot of thought, but tried out some of what I had learned. “Well, I guess I’d say to them that because of the cultural trauma that your people went through, you’ve experienced a lot of pathologies, like chemical dependency and domestic violence.”

  “Yeah. They’ve heard that,” Peggy said matter-of-factly. “They’re going to expect you to be funny.”

  That took me a little by surprise. Peggy wasn’t with the campaign full-time, but she’d been involved enough to know our key strategic objective. “We’re trying to get away from The Funny,” I reminded her.

  Peggy nodded. “I know. But they’re going to expect you to be funny. And after you speak, there’ll be more dancing. Don’t dance.”

  Peggy couldn’t come on the six-hour drive to Red Lake the next day, and while I felt I had internalized her instructions, I was frankly pretty nervous about my remarks. I had never spoken to a large Indian
audience before, and I wanted to let them know I had given some serious thought to their issues.

  But I trusted Peggy. On the drive up, I told Kris that I decided I’d just have to read the crowd and go with my gut.

  Kris and I arrived at Red Lake just in time and drove right to the powwow grounds. The arena was a set of concentric circles. In the middle was a circular gazebo, and around it a wide dirt circle for dancing. All around the outside of the dance circle were drums, which provided the rhythm for the dancing. The drummers would sing traditional Ojibwe songs as well.

  The outside circle was comprised of bleachers, where a good crowd of spectators had gathered for the festivities. The drums started, and, just as Peggy said, the veterans led in their regalia and caps from the Gulf Wars, from Vietnam and Korea. There was even one member of the Greatest Generation wearing his World War II cap. They were followed by others in their regalia—men, women, and children, dancing around the outdoor arena.

  I stood on the outside of the dancing circle, enjoying myself. At least until a middle-aged man danced up to me and said, “Why don’t you come in and dance?”

  He danced in place, motioning with his arm that I should come in and join everyone.

  “Um,” I said uncomfortably. “I, uh…”

  “We’ll respect you more if you dance,” he said with great seriousness.

  “Okay. Maybe later. Maybe later,” I said with great lameness.

  One nod and he moved on. “Hmmm,” I thought as I backed away from the circle, “maybe I should have had Peggy come with me.” Or maybe I should have at least asked her what I should say if someone asked me to dance.

  After about thirty or forty minutes of drumming and dancing, the sun had set. The emcee announced the speaking portion of the powwow and the dancers took their seats in the bleachers with the others.