Al Franken to run for Senate

A blurb from the AP reports a "senior Democratic official" as saying that Al Franken intends to run for Senate from his home state of Minnesota, challenging incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. (Who won the seat after the tragic death only days before the election of Sen. Paul Wellstone.)

Franken is the author of such classics as, "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations", "Why Not Me?", "LIES: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them - A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right", and "The Truth (With Jokes)" and former writer and actor at Saturday Night Live.

He's been a major name in helping to establish Air America with "The Al Franken Show" on that network, but has announced he'll leave the show on February 14th and consider whether to run for Senate, according to the website of his political action committee, "Midwest Values PAC".

This news, if indeed true, would indicate that he's made that decision and will announce sometime in the near future.

I think he'd certainly be a competent senator and a great improvement over Coleman. Franken truly knows his stuff and has been networking with top Dems and government officials for years. His campaign will certainly be interesting to watch, as his ironic humor has the potential to absolutely eviscerate Coleman.

And speaking of announcements, Joe Biden made his run for president official yesterday, and as is his wont, followed it immediately by stepping on his tongue. In trying to be charitable and complimentary to his opponent Barack Obama, he managed to come across as if he felt that an African-American who was "clean", and articulate was a real rarity.

Of course, that's not what he meant at all, but his choice of words was unfortunate to say the least, and he implied that African-American candidates in the past, such as Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al, Shirley Chisolm and Illinois' own Carol Moseley-Braun, somehow didn't possess the qualities he ascribed to Obama. Not exactly an auspicious start for Smokin' Joe, who's strength of "straight talk" with a dash of everyday causualness may end up biting him under the often ridiculous scrutiny of a presidential run.