MN-SEN: Franken, Coleman in statistical dead heat

Comparing Al Franken to Mike Hatch is a stretch. Hatch's biggest failure was he didn't run a grassroots campaign. Al on the other hand is running the exact kind of campaign that Amy Klobuchar ran. Al is 'banking' on having talked to and shaken hands with thousands upon thousands of Minnesotans.

Moderate or Extreme, those are the choices. Pragmatic or ideologically pure. Get something done with compromise, or get nothing done at all.

I don't think Al is anything like Hatch. That right there sounds an awful lot like Ron Carey saying 'angry al'. I also think that Al's supporters are steadfast and that Jack has lost the nomination. His hope, like Hillary's was to change pledged delegates, delegates who made campaign promises of support for Al in order to be elected to the convention. His hope is that a calamity would befall Al, that this poll would have shown Al in the 30s or something equally discouraging, to help him pry these people from the oaths they took to fellow citizens.

Al is the only candidate who has ever been within 15 points of Norm in a major poll.

I agree that either you torture or you don't. I strongly disagree with your insinuation that Al is ok with torture, and I think you ought to take it back. Opposing torture is a moderate position. Al is a moderate on torture. Torturing in order to extract information is an extreme position. Not interrogating at all would be the correspondent extreme position. Which extreme position are you suggesting Jack supports?

One can be moderate on an Iran war by, for example, engaging the international community, imposing sanctions, supporting opposition groups financially, talking to Iran's leader. Al is a Moderate on Iran. Unilateral invasion without provocation or existing justification would be an extreme position. No war with Iran under any circumstances (including, for example, Iran engaging our troops already in the field, or offensive action by Iran against our allies) would also be an extreme position. Which extreme position are you suggesting Jack supports?

I cannot believe you call the Iraq war moderate. It was caused by extremism in the current administration. I think you mean that a gradual drawdown which doesn't endanger the troops in field, conducted under the normal command structure with the commander in chief issuing orders, which does not threaten the energy security of our country and our allies , which takes responsibility for the mess we made is a moderate position. I think you're right - and I think it's the position of the vast majority of Minnesotans. An extreme position would be to call immediate withdrawal regardless of consequences, just as the decision to invade regardless of consequences was extreme.

On healthcare, some people are happy with their coverage and the state of Healthcare in our country. Calling the systems we have in place now "moderate" is not helpful. The apt comparison is between improvement proposals. It would be moderate to call for incremental expansion of healthcare access, to provide federal funding to the states to find the best, most workable healthcare solution. It would be extreme to provide federal universal single payer healthcare. It is also impossible. No presidential candidate supports it. Obama has a moderate healthcare plan that conflicts with Jack's plan. No congressional candidate outside a major city could vote for it and beat the attacks about being a communist. National single-payer can't be achieved by a senate candidate and is therefore pandering. It wins strong support in the endorsement base, like Jack's war position. It doesn't win in the general election. Al's plan (50 laboratories) is complementary to Obama's and offers the best hope to Minnesotans for achieving single-payer system, albeit at the state level, during the next 6 years.

You don't want moderate regulation, you'd like, what, total regulation? I think in a lot of cases our Government protects us from ourselves in violation of our liberty. I think a lot of industries are too heavily regulated. There are some areas where more regulation is needed. That's a moderate position - appropriate and effective regulation.

Real committed solutions with courage are well and good. Workable solutions are better, though. Government is supposed to improve people's lives. I think it is the most powerful human invention aimed at this pursuit. It is not, however, capable of making the world perfect, and governments operate in the real world where southern states get votes, the executive branch sets policy objectives, and where a single senator can stop all business from going forward if an extreme view offends them too much.

Al Franken is going to be a Senator who delivers improvements to people lives. Moderate doesn't mean sellout. It means willing to take acceptable, workable solutions instead of refusing to compromise based on ideological preconditions. Whether that ideology is pacifism or projection of US military and economic might, we have had far too much obstinate leadership in this country. Sure, there are lines in the sand, we don't torture. And there are desires, like, hopefully no war with Iran will be necessary.

You probably saw this commentary today on moderate Iran policy vs. an extreme one. Outstanding.

Franken is certainly not a clone of Mike Hatch, but a couple of things are dangerously similar.

First, there is the similar danger of a meltdown. We all remember that Hatch had a decent chance until that unfortunate name-calling incident with the reporter.

Think about Franken a bit. His early speeches were mind-numbing boring. It just seemed like he himself wasn't actually interested in what he was saying. Play back some of those tapes and you will see that not only JNP shines brilliantly in comparison, but Ciresi does too. Then notice how Franken finally came up with a more animated 3-minute speech that said "You know me!' but his people kept shutting off every attempt at longer speeches at the Congressional District conventions. Notice how he wouldn't have any reporters ride along with him for longer interviews, and how he left gatherings in a hurry while the questions were still hanging in the air. Notice how Franken said not one word, not even a joke, about the stupid Republican smears at the CD2, CD8 and CD7 conventions, even though every single delegate at the conventions had been reading the same neocon swiftboating.

This is not the witty and memorable and sometimes charming Franken that we might have expected. This is the Franken who is very tightly scripted and doesn't really enjoy it that much. This is the Franken who seems to be in some danger of a Hatch-style meltdown, and whose staffers are doing everything they possibly can to avoid having that happen before the convention next week.

Only ask yourself this question: Could he possibly make it until November, if he manages to get endorsed next week? In my opinion, not very likely.

The second way that Franken's and Hatch's campaigns are similar is in the way the supposed strength is being framed. For months and months and months, Franken's campaign has sold Franken as the inevitable DFL nominee. For all that time, he was being marketed as the most electable candidate. Because he had the most money. Because he had a high name-recognition and because he was a celebrity. Because the big-wig superdelegates and the big-wig union leaders (although not the rank and file, in my experience) said so.

Do you remember the painful arm-twisting for Hatch that several unions, especially the Carpenters, were doing on the floor in Rochester in 2006? I do. It still hurts.

But what makes Franken inevitable? What gives millions of out-of-state contributions some advantage with the electorate? Why do people go along with this tragic band-wagon effect? Even yesterday's polls, didn't include Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, on the completely false presumption that there isn't really a contest for the DFL endorsement.

When you get underneath all this, this sort of pressure is merely a kind of bullying. It doesn't produce a better senator to represent us. It doesn't even produce a candidate that can win against Coleman.

Listen, I like Franken. I think he is a brilliant satirist. And I think he is absolutely miserable with the constraints he has been having with this misguided run for the U.S. Senate. I would be happy to seem him get back to his strengths and start ripping Norm Coleman to pieces. And I think we would all be happier if we just put a bit of this money into Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer's campaign and didn't have to put up with Norm Coleman for another 6 years.