Minnesota Republicans regard thousands of hours of Al Franken speeches and air-checks as manna from heaven. They are certain their decent, rigidly traditional, God-fearing, Bachmann-ite base will develop chronic, moral whiplash from the volleys of vulgar imagery Franken has thrown at poor Norm Coleman and Republicans in general over his career. But judging by the non-reaction reaction to Repoublican party chairman Ron Carey air-quoting Franken calling Normie a “buttboy”, they may have to dig a little deeper for something that truly offends modern adult Minnesotan sensibilities. Since most of us get a joke, have watched primetime sit-coms and lived through Jesse Ventura, our threshold for shock is higher than your average butt.
Political reporters with whom I spoke prior to Franken’s Valentine’s Day announcement were grumbling a bit. They weren’t so hot on being denied physical access to him in the studio at the moment he declared his candidacy, [there was a pool video feed, hosted by WCCO], and they didn’t much like his very Hollywood junket-style one-on-one interviews the following day. Not real upset. But some.
Their thinking being that like our last celebrity politician, the Honorable Mr. Ventura, the boys and girls who are going to cover Franken for a good chunk of the next 21 months — TWENTY ONE MONTHS! — wanted to see if he can take a hit. They wanted to see how low his flashpoint really is set, and whether the aggregate effect of so much professional impertinence in one room for a mass press conference would prompt an early, out-of-the-gate, persona-defining meltdown. (Think: Denny Green after blowing a game to the Chicago Bears.)
It didn’t work that way. By all accounts, Franken’s first few days reminded Minnesota’s political press corps that this is not going to be “Apocalypse II: Jesse Redux”. Beyond that though, I was curious if the local corps and their managers have examined their consciences in the years since Ventura left the stage and re-thought the gotcha-crazed pack mentality that had them following the big lunk everywhere short of the men’s room in hopes that — “Please, God!” — he would say or do something buffoonish enough for the top-of-the-10.
“Well, I know I’ve done some personal re-thinking since the Ventura era,” says Don Shelby, who more or less big-footed ‘CCO radio’s half hour with Franken. [Shelby says it was his aggressive producer, and not him.] “Ventura was a novelty who turned himself into a joke and the joke was on us. And any reporter who hasn’t looked at that and admitted that that is what happened is kidding himself.”
What Ventura never figured out was how to play the media’s catnip attraction to him for his benefit — beyond goosing his appearance fees for wrestling acts and whatever. As Shelby and WCCO-TV’s Pat Kessler and KSTP’S Tom Hauser and the Star Tribune’s Dane Smith all acknowledged, Franken is a much brighter bulb, a much savvier student of media than Ventura. Which means, doesn’t it? I asked, that the press corps’ radar will have to be set to “11” in order to avoid becoming a primary component in the Al Franken for Senate free media strategy?
“I don’t know. Franken isn’t coming out of blue on us,” says Hauser. “He’s a much more known quantity. And let’s not forget that none of us really paid Ventura any attention until the last month of the campaign. After the debates. Until then he was just a radio station publicity stunt. This will be different. And in terms of why we covered Ventura like we did, I don’t see Franken making the mistake of taking things as personally as Ventura, who really was a loose cannon when it came to how he responded to criticism.
“I’ve had him on ‘At Issue’ twice, I think. Once before 9-11, where he was very funny and got off a lot of good jokes, and then once after 9-11, when he was very serious and thoughtful. I think 9-11 changed a lot about how those of us in the media look at this stuff, too. I mean before it was all Monica Lewinsky. After, well, there are a lot more important things going on.”
What Hauser says he took away from his first date interview Thursday was that Franken understands the importance of, “separating his comedic past from his political future.” The (sad) irony being that Franken the jokester-satirist, the guy calling buttboys buttboys, is a far better guarantor of free media than any thoughtful analysis of U.S. Mideast policies.
“He’s going to have to walk a fine line between getting attention for being a serious candidate and getting attention for being Al Franken.”
The Strib’s Dane Smith came away from his 30 minutes with the impression that Franken is determined to be taken seriously. “There are some concerns here,” says Smith, referring to the Star Tribune, “in terms of fairness to other possible candidates who don’t have his name recognition. But you know how we do these things, when they announce every candidate gets a 1-B piece that is a pretty straight-forward opportunity to say who they are and why they’re running. The other stuff comes later.”
Smith cautions any celebrity candidate who assumes the local media will be a kind of inexhaustible ATM machine for profile-building to remember that, “Ventura left office a pretty unpopular figure.” Point being, the public is now appropriately suspicious about another self-serving, “Its All About Me” act.
“But I don’t mind telling you,” says Smith, “I was impressed by how knowledgeable and business-like Franken was in our interview. I mean, he is a Harvard grad, and that comes across.”
“That’s the biggest difference between Ventura and Franken,” says WCCO-TV’s Kessler. “All the butt boy jokes and whatever else he’s said, the guy really does know his stuff. I read his latest book, [“The Truth: With Jokes”], and its very thoughtful. You don’t get the impression talking to him that this is just another vanity candidate.
Wait. Did I just make that up? That’s pretty good!”
Shelby too was impressed. “I’ve known [Franken] for a long time and there has always been this serious side to him. You graduate summa cum laude from Harvard and there’s something going on there. So, again, the comparison to Ventura isn’t exactly appropriate.
“But, yes, it would be wrong if there weren’t a higher level of restraint on the part of the press this time because of the way the tail wagged the dog with Ventura. And let’s not forget this is a campaign. We covered Ventura as an elected official. For that reason I think the Franken news cycle will slow down quite a bit here after this first rush.”
Shelby and Kessler’s boss, WCCO-TV news director, Jeff Kiernan, wasn’t yet on the job when Ventura-mania struck in 1998, “So I don’t have the perspective Don and Pat have. So I’m trusting their judgment on these things as we begin here. But we understand the celebrity angle well enough to guarantee equal coverage. We certainly do not intend to give Franken any more or better coverage than say, Mike Ciresi, if he gets in the race.”
An example of Franken’s new, more modulated demeanor is him declaring that for the foreseeable future he will refrain from calling Norm Coleman George W. Bush’s butt boy. “Lapdog” will do for the time being.
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