Al Franken, Giant of the Senate Read online

  Still, I knew I had the debates. I was relishing the chance to get on a stage with Coleman. But once we started preparing, I found that the debate format—ninety-second answer, thirty-second rebuttal—felt horribly unnatural to me. To make things worse, these debates weren’t going to be the two-man debates between me and Coleman that I had been dreaming about for years. Barkley would be on the stage as well. Senator Barkley. Along with Senator Coleman. And Mr. Franken.

  My team explained to me that attacking Norm was just going to give Barkley an opportunity to say, “There they go again. Aren’t you sick of all this partisan rancor? That’s why Minnesota needs an Independent in Washington.”

  So we came up with a strategy. I would play golf, not tennis. In tennis the idea is to beat the other guy. In golf, it’s just about you. My goal would be to show Minnesotans who I was and that I understood who they are. I would talk about how to replace No Child Left Behind, about getting to universal health care, about a clean energy economy, about a stronger middle class. I would pick spots to contrast what I wanted to do with what Norm had failed to do, waiting till a round where I was the last to speak.

  Meanwhile, we were still feeling the impact of Norm’s character attacks. Our October 1 tracking poll had me down six: Coleman 40, Franken 34, Barkley 18.

  And that’s when Franni saved the campaign.

  Chapter 19

  Franni Saves the Campaign

  Franni had never discussed her alcoholism publicly. Part of the disease is the shame that comes with it. She had shared her story only with a few close friends, including those she had met in AA. It’s called Alcoholics Anonymous for a reason.

  Traveling around the state, Franni could see the toll that all the attack ads on my character were taking, and it was making her mad. She knew very well that the guy they depicted was not the guy she had married and raised two children with. Franni wanted to tell Minnesotans who I really was.

  So she insisted on sitting down with Mandy and a camera crew.

  Mandy interviewed Franni in our living room for over an hour, and Franni spoke honestly and openly about her disease. And while the vicious attack ads from the Republicans had made Franni’s mom cry, the ad Mandy and her team cut together still makes me cry whenever I see it. In fact, when Chuck Schumer saw it, he called me to say that he had cried. And also that he thought it would win me the election.

  The ad is very simple. Franni sitting on a couch, talking to an off-camera Mandy, intercut with photos of me and Franni as we’ve gone through the years, with photos of our beautiful daughter and son and our family. Here’s the text:

  I first met Al at a freshman dance in college, and it was love at first sight. We’ve been married now for almost thirty-three years and we’ve been so blessed in so many ways. But we also had some bad times. And at one point in our life I struggled with alcohol dependency. How could a mother of two fabulous, healthy children be an alcoholic? When I was struggling with my recovery, Al stood right by my side and he stood up for me. After what we went through, Al wrote two beautiful movies, and he wrote them because he wanted to help people. And they’re used in rehabs all over the country. The Al Franken I know stood by me through thick and thin—so I know he’ll always come through for Minnesota.

  It was a sixty-second ad, which meant it was twice as expensive to run, but you try editing that down.

  What blew me away the most was the line “How could a mother of two fabulous, healthy children be an alcoholic?” It was so honest about the shame she had felt, and the shame that so many women, especially, with chemical dependency feel. “This ad is the best political ad of the season,” wrote local TV anchor Esme Murphy on her blog, “because it might just help one person see in themselves the need to get help.”

  Two days later, Coleman, Barkley, and I had a debate in a gymnasium, with a big crowd sitting in the bleachers and in chairs on the gym floor. When Franni entered the room, she got a standing ovation.

  There is no question that I would have lost the election if Franni had not made that spot. The courage that it took amazes me. A couple years later, a book came out about the eight-month recount and legal battle, entitled This Is Not Florida. If you go to the index and look under “Franken, Franni,” the first entry is “and alcoholism.”

  People often come up to me and tell me that I have a thankless job. But as Lorne Michaels used to say, “The thing about a thankless job is that nobody thanks you.” And people thank me all the time. I think it’s Franni who has a thankless job. Which reminds me. I really ought to thank Franni one of these days for making that ad. And all the other stuff.

  In that debate, the one in the gymnasium, Norm brought up my “assault” on the protester in Manchester, New Hampshire. When I told the crowd about getting the key to the city, they laughed. I had played a good game of golf, but by the next debate the course had changed dramatically.

  All summer long, the housing market had been in turmoil, and on September 29 the financial crisis reached a climax in the wake of Lehman Brothers going under. It took about a week for a $700 billion–plus bailout package to work its way through Congress. Coleman immediately came out for the bailout, telling voters in North Mankato that “the government could make 10 or 20 times what it pays on this, possibly.”

  “It shows how out of touch he is,” I told the Star Tribune.

  I admit that I had the luxury of not having to cast a vote during a rapidly escalating crisis. But I felt that the bailout as proposed did little to protect taxpayers and nothing for homeowners who were the victims of the malfeasance of so many of those who were being bailed out. I said I’d vote for a package that had ownership stakes for taxpayers in companies seeking relief, the creation of a financial product safety commission, protections for homeowners—like allowing bankruptcy lawyers to adjust mortgages in order to prevent foreclosures—and no bonuses or golden parachutes for executives.

  At that next debate, which was televised nationally, the bailout became the centerpiece of discussion. Norm asked how I could have opposed a bailout that Senators Amy Klobuchar and Barack Obama had both voted for? “I guess maybe,” I offered, “I’m just, I don’t know, a maverick.”

  As the audience laughed, Norm responded, a little uncomfortably (and more oddly, considering that his party’s nominee that year was Senator John McCain), “I guess Minnesota should decide if they want a maverick in the Senate.”

  Franken Internal Poll, October 1:

  Coleman 40, Franken 34, Barkley 18.

  Franken Internal Poll, October 8:

  Franken 40, Coleman 32, Barkley 22.

  It’s certainly possible that Norm’s decision to support the bailout of Wall Street—and my decision to oppose it—was a factor in this swing. But in the October 1 poll, only 33 percent of Minnesotans reported that they had a favorable opinion of me. Then came Franni’s ad. And a week later, it was up to 41 percent favorable, with a lot of the difference coming from women.

  Still not exactly “beloved” territory. But it was a real turning point in the race.

  Another came that very day, October 8. All summer, we’d been making the case that Norm was kind of shady, pointing to the sweetheart deal he’d gotten on that apartment in D.C., as well as a long litany of trips he’d taken to exotic destinations like Paris and the Bahamas, all paid for by special interests with business before the government.

  This was technically legal. But nearly fifty trips over his first term—at a cost of nearly $100,000—spoke to a guy who was way too close to powerful interests. In fact, the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington awarded him an Honorable Mention in their list of the “Most Corrupt” people in Washington (a list that, by the way, included both Democrats and Republicans).

  In early October, a reporter from Harper’s magazine had started digging into rumors that a businessman named Nasser Kazeminy, who had flown Norm around the world on his private plane, had also bought Norm some suits. The Senate requires you to report gifts from frien
ds; Norm had not reported being gifted any suits. It was curious, to say the least.

  On October 8, when Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan called a press conference to attack me for some unrelated nonsense, a reporter pounced, asking whether there was any truth to the rumor.

  “The senator,” Sheehan said, “has reported every gift he’s ever received.”

  “That wasn’t my question,” the reporter responded, but Sheehan gave the same exact answer: “The senator has reported every gift he’s ever received.”

  “So Senator Coleman’s friend has not bought these suits for him? Is that correct?”

  “The senator,” Sheehan repeated, “has reported every gift he’s ever received.”

  Cullen Sheehan never actually answered the question of whether Kazeminy had bought Coleman any suits. But over the next few minutes he would go on to repeat this same oddly legalistic answer nearly a dozen times. It couldn’t have been more clear that something was up.

  The video went viral, making a round of the national blogs.

  I was as curious as anyone as to whether there was some big scandal lurking here. But I was also looking forward to what we had planned for the next day, October 9.

  Many of the Republican ads that summer had featured a particular clip of me, my face contorted, my arms waving. I’m practically jumping up and down. I look like I’m having a temper tantrum. It’s not my best look.

  But I recognized that clip. And I knew exactly where they’d gotten it.

  Paul Wellstone had been an amazingly passionate guy, with extraordinary energy. He’d always end speeches with an astounding burst of enthusiasm that brought crowds to their feet. Democrats in the state loved it and always waited in eager anticipation for him to rock it at the end. The closest thing I’ve experienced has been at Grateful Dead shows.

  Now, during the campaign, my friend David Wellstone, one of Paul and Sheila’s sons, spent some time touring the state with me. One day I asked David a question that had been on my mind for a few years.

  “David, I’ve heard this thing about your dad, and I wanted to ask you. I heard that he had so much energy that when you kids played soccer, he’d run up and down the sidelines following the ball back and forth up and down the field. Is that true?”

  “Yeah.” David nodded. “But get this. I ran cross-country.” He paused for effect.

  He didn’t…!?

  David nodded again. “My dad used to run alongside me just off the side of the course. About three hundred yards from the finish, I’d be about ten yards behind the leader and totally out of gas, and my dad would start yelling, ‘You can take this guy! You can take this guy! You can do it! You can take this guy!!!’”

  Now imagine how weird that was for the other guy.

  I started telling that story in my stump speech. And I’d end with running in place, wildly gesticulating, screaming, “You can take this guy! You can take this guy!!!” and then I’d tell the end of the story.

  Which was David saying, “And wouldn’t you know it, I’d take that guy!”

  Then I’d exhort the crowd, “I need you to be my Paul! Will you be my Paul!? Will you be my Paul!!?”

  Crowds loved the story, so I started doing it at the end of rallies. And Republicans had taken their tracker’s footage of this and run it through the DeHumorizer™ (which apparently could process body language just as efficiently as it could words). Without the sound, I looked pretty crazy.

  So our ad, another Saul Shorr joint, simply explained what they’d done. It opened on a picture of Paul. No music. “Paul Wellstone used to run alongside his son David when David was running cross-country races,” began the narrator, an elderly gentleman who sounded like the guy from Pepperidge Farm commercials. “Listen to Al Franken tell the story.”

  And then the video of me telling the story, with David Wellstone sitting right there and a charmed crowd grinning and chuckling at the memory of Paul. And when I got to the “You can take this guy!!!” part, the narrator pauses the clip. “Look familiar?” he asks, as a few frames from the Republican ad that had taken me out of context slid onto the screen next to me. “That’s right. Ads for Norm Coleman used footage of Al Franken telling this story about Paul Wellstone and his son, and tried to make it seem like he was angry.”

  It’s not uncommon to see one ad debunking another ad. But this one felt different, with no music, no hyperventilating narration, no flashy graphics, and a tone that suggested it was more in sadness than in anger. It was, in a way, an ad not just about one deliberate mischaracterization, but about the entire rotten campaign Republicans had run against me. If they could lie about me telling a story about my late friend, a story that was about his positive energy and his enthusiasm and his spirit, then what else were they lying about? Could we trust anything they said? And what did it say about Norm that this was how he was hoping to keep his job?

  “Minnesota deserves better,” the ad concluded, and I think Coleman must have realized Minnesotans would agree. Because the very next day, he announced that he was going to pull down all of his negative ads and run a purely positive campaign the rest of the way. He explained that he had come to his decision over the recent Yom Kippur holiday. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, and Norm had evidently had an epiphany.

  I decided I was not all that interested in returning to Washington for another six years based on the judgment of voters that I was not as bad as the other guys. I want folks to vote for me, and not against the other folks.

  It was probably just a coincidence that a recent poll had shown that, by a more than two-to-one margin, voters blamed Norm more than me for the negative tone of the race. And it was probably just a coincidence that this was happening the day after we’d busted him telling a particularly ugly lie about my Paul Wellstone impersonation. And it was probably just a coincidence that, two days earlier, his campaign manager had signaled to the world that there was likely a major ethics scandal brewing in Norm’s closet.

  We were incredulous. “It’s like an arsonist burning down every house in the village and then asking to be named fire chief,” we told the press.

  But, incredibly, his claptrapUSS seemed to be working, and our lead began to dwindle.

  Franken Internal Poll, October 15:

  Franken 39, Coleman 32, Barkley 24.

  Franken Internal Poll, October 21:

  Franken 39, Coleman 35, Barkley 21.

  Franken Internal Poll, October 23:

  Franken 40, Coleman 37, Barkley 18.

  Chapter 20

  “Has It Gotten That Bad?!”

  On October 25, I woke up in a bad mood.

  At a debate the night before, I had gone around and around with Coleman and Barkley on the subject of guns. It was the same argument Democrats and Republicans always have: They insisted that I wanted to take everyone’s guns away, I insisted that I didn’t.

  Now, Minnesota is a fairly pro-gun state. A lot of Minnesotans hunt—deer and pheasants in particular. But the Frankens didn’t. Dad had taken me and Owen fishing, but not hunting. In fact, the first time I ever shot a gun was during the campaign.

  Congressman Collin Peterson from rural western Minnesota, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, had invited me to go pheasant hunting in October 2007, and I couldn’t very well say no. But this was a mere year and a half after Vice President Cheney had shot his seventy-eight-year-old lawyer friend, Harry Whittington, in the face while hunting quail. If Cheney, an avid lifelong hunter, could shoot a friend in the face while bird hunting, wasn’t it possible, even likely, that I could shoot Collin, whom I barely knew, in the face? That wouldn’t help my campaign at all!

  So I bought a shotgun and went to a range to shoot clay pigeons a couple of times. The day before the hunt, my team gave me a brief:

  SHOOT THIS:

  NOT THIS:

  Mission accomplished. I bagged a couple pheasants that beautiful fall day, and Collin’s face emerged entirely inta
ct.

  Anyway, I told this story during the debate. But Coleman was still trying to paint me as a gun-grabber—the kind of lie that, as you may recall from my previous books, drives me nuts.

  So I was kind of cranky the next morning as I was rushing out the door for a full day of campaigning. Suddenly it occurred to me that there would be media at some of my events. I stopped in my tracks. Playing it out in my mind, I realized that a member of the press might ask me if I really owned a shotgun. And then to trick me, they might ask me the brand of the gun, which I could not remember for the life of me. What if they ask, and I say Remington when I really own a—omigod, I don’t even know the name of another shotgun! This could be a disaster! What kind of Minnesotan doesn’t know the make of his own shotgun? Certainly not one who expects to represent the state in the United States Senate! Wait! Winchester?!

  This kind of confused thinking takes time, and by now I was running late. But I just had to check on my shotgun, which we kept upstairs in the guest-room closet for suicidal guests. My eighty-five-year-old mother-in-law, the one who cried when she saw the commercial that suggested I was into bestiality, was staying with us for the remainder of the campaign. I ran up the stairs and knocked on her door.

  “Fran?!” Remember, Franni’s a junior. “Fran, are you decent?”

  “What?!” Fran is very hard of hearing.

  “Can I open the door?!” I yelled. “Are you dressed?!”

  The door swung open, my mother-in-law in her robe, looking slightly puzzled.

  “I need to find my gun!” I shouted as I passed her, heading to the closet.

  “Your tie?”

  “No! No! My gun! MY GUN!”

  In the closet, I could not find the shotgun, which I had left (unloaded) standing upright in a corner. The shotgun was gone!