Al Franken may Win Ben Stein's Money...for his campaign

[thatcrazycajun]

Former Air America Radio host and Saturday Night Live mainstay Al Franken is, as you may know, running for Senate in his home state of Minnesota. Thanks to jrittenhouse, I just found out that Al's newest supporter in the fight to unseat Republican incumbent Norm Coleman is one of the most die-hard GOP guys around: "Tricky Dick" Nixon's former speechwriter, book author, Comedy Central game-show host and movie star ("Bueller? Bueller??") Ben Stein. (Full disclosure: I was a huge fan of Ben's show, Win Ben Stein's Money, when it was in production, and am still peeved that CC canned it. It didn't hurt that Ben had snarky Jimmy Kimmel as his announcer and sidekick, but Ben himself is surprisingly good at deadpan delivery of humor.)

Yahoo! News reports the endorsement here. Money quote: "I'm struck by what an incredibly capable, hard-working guy he is," Stein told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday. "He's a very smart liberal, he's a thoroughgoing patriot, and I would feel better with him in the Senate."

Even I, a longtime Franken fan and liberal Democrat, had trouble believing up to now that the guy had any serious chance at winning the nomination; aside from the fact that he's a comedian, there are several other career-pol Dems in the race. But if ol' BJS is impressed enough to put aside party loyalty and publicly cross the aisle to endorse Al, maybe he really does have a shot. After all, this is the state that elected Jesse "The Body" Ventura governor...

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Wow. Stein takes a single step (of many, MANY necessary) to redeem himself. (Especially after shilling for that horrid fraud of an ID movie.)

Franken would have my vote, if I were there. (Then again, he would have, regardless of ol' Ben's endorsement.)

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Coleman is not well-liked, and Minnesotans tend to do odd things when they get disgusted (Jesse is a prime example).
So Franken has a better chance then you might imagine.

[ericavdg.livejournal.com]

I hope you're right, shellybear. I'd love to watch what Franken would do in office. Now let's get the vot out: Bueller? Bueller?

Especially for You

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Polls and predictions.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one who's noticed the odd similarity between the names of Al Franken and 1936 presidential loser Alf Landon? (Probably not related to Michael.)

I'm a big fan of Al, have autographed copies of all his books, and wish he'd run for national office so I could vote for him. In the case of most any pol I've heard of, Al would be an improvement. Or if they could just give him a network talk show, say, weekday afternoons, that would be good too.