Six months after Election Day, Al Franken is a man in limbo, preparing for an office he's not entirely sure he's going to get, chained to a fundraising treadmill for a legal battle that goes on and on, and champing to get to work while precious committee assignments and pitched policy battles pass him by.
He has hired a Minnesota state director -- Alana Peterson -- but she's working for free because he can't draw on any money budgeted for a Senate seat that has no winner. His office? Most days it's his Minneapolis townhouse. On Friday, it was the back corner of the Egg and I, a venerable breakfast and lunch joint on University Avenue near the line between Minneapolis and St. Paul.
The restaurant is a few dozen feet away from a darkened office with a forlorn "For Lease" sign in the window and slightly peeling red letters that announce "United States Senate Office, 100 N" -- the former digs of Norm Coleman, who occupies a similar nether state as both sides prepare for oral arguments before the state Supreme Court in June. |