There’s no joke about it: One of the costliest and roughest senate races in the US is between comedian and Democratic activist Al Franken and an incumbent Republican using all his old lines against him.
One of the original writers for the iconic comedy show Saturday Night Live, Franken is now best known for the political commentary of his bestselling books and syndicated radio show.
And after a rough campaign, where he has been attacked for failing to pay his taxes and writing a raunchy article in Playboy magazine, Franken is currently running neck and neck with Norm Coleman to represent Minnesota in the US senate.
Coleman won his seat in 2002 after Franken’s friend and long-time Democratic senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash 11 days before the election.
Franken has skewered Coleman for voting with unpopular US President George W. Bush nearly 90 percent of the time and for accepting free trips and discounted rent from lobbyists.
Coleman has chided Franken for his “vicious” and “dirty” campaign smears — including tying him to a lawsuit alleging that a top donor funneled money to Coleman’s wife — and used expletive-filled clips from Franken’s radio program to declare him “out of control” and unfit for office.
The candidates have spent more than US$30 million on the race, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and millions more have poured in from the national parties and independent groups as Democrats vie to gain a majority in the senate and Republicans struggle to block them.
Minnesota is no stranger to electing unorthodox entertainers, having tapped former pink-boa wearing professional wrestler turned actor and commentator Jesse Ventura as governor in 1998. Franken has mostly eschewed comedy on the campaign trail, focusing on policy proposals and the problems with the Republican administration and his plans to rebuild the “middle class economy” and make college and health care more affordable.
Born in New York in 1951, Franken moved to Minnesota when he was four years old.
He mixed comedy with politics at an early age, running for president of his seventh grade class with the slogan: “Never spit in a man’s face unless his mustache is on fire.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS