Capping nearly two years of speculation, comedian and radio talk show host Al Franken on Wednesday announced he is challenging Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in Minnesota’s 2008 Senate race. The longtime liberal activist used his announcement to immediately address what appear to be his biggest potential problems in his first bid for public office: Persuading voters that he is qualified to serve in the Senate, and assuring them that his bid is not a midlife lark after spending his adult life as an entertainer and satirist. “Minnesotans have a right to be skeptical about whether I’m ready for this challenge, and to wonder how seriously I would take the responsibility that I’m asking you to give me,” he said in a nearly nine-minute video statement posted on his Web site.| “Minnesotans have a right to be skeptical about whether I’m ready for this challenge" |
Though Franken brings a well-known name, publicity value and strong fundraising potential to the Minnesota contest, his viability as a candidate will be closely examined by Democratic strategists: They plan to make a top target of Coleman, who they considered highly vulnerable in a politically competitive state in which the Democrats are coming off a strong 2006 campaign.
Franken doesn’t appear to have the Democratic field to himself. Also running is attorney Mike Ciresi, who announced Feb. 11 that he would seek the Democratic nomination. It will be a second Senate try for Ciresi, who took 22 percent of the Democratic primary vote in 2000 in finishing second to Mark Dayton (41 percent), who went on to win the seat and hold it for one term before retiring. Coleman, a former St. Paul mayor and former Democrat, won his seat in 2002 by a 2 percentage-point margin over former Vice President Walter F. Mondale — who stood in as the nominee after the Democratic incumbent, Paul Wellstone, died in a plane crash in late October of that year.