The Clinton Veepwatch, Vol. 6: Al Franken
In which Unconventional examines the Democratic nominee’s possible — and not-so-possible — vice presidential picks. Previous installments: Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine, Mark Cuban, Julián Castro, Sherrod Brown.
Name: Alan Stuart “Al” Franken
Age: 65
Résumé: U.S. senator from Minnesota; former Air America radio host; former “Saturday Night Live” writer and performer; author of six books
Source of speculation: A report last week in Politico. The story itself was mostly about how Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, long considered Clinton’s safest VP pick, had officially ascended to the top of her shortlist — intel, we can assume, that “Democratic allies and operatives close to the campaign” leaked to Politico as a way of gauging reaction among progressives and preparing them for the letdown of an all-centrist ticket.
But deep in the Politico dispatch — 17 paragraphs down, to be exact — there was a single non sequitur of a sentence that again gave liberals reason to hope, however faintly, that one of their own might someday join the ticket:
One dark horse that Clinton allies said is also on the list is Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, a close ally who is also popular with the progressive wing of the party and enjoys a closer bond with Clinton.
And that wasn’t all. Curiously enough, the Associated Press published a Franken profilethe same day Politico posted its report; the headline declared that the former comedian was “ready to unleash [his] wit and wisdom on Clinton’s behalf.” Asked to respond to the running-mate rumors, Franken was characteristically direct.
“If Hillary Clinton came to me and said, ‘Al, I really need you to be my vice president, to run with me,’ I would say yes,” he told the AP.
So Hillary is reportedly considering it — and Al approves. That means a Clinton-Franken ticket is a real possibility … right?
Backstory: Before we assess the odds here, it’s worth looking back at Clinton and Franken’s long history together — and explaining why Beltway types who might have once dismissed the idea of Vice President Franken are beginning to mention him in the same breath as Kaine and Julian Castro.
Clinton and Franken have been friends for years. They met in 1994 when, for that year’s Gridiron Dinner, Franken wrote a parody of the famous anti-Hillarycare “Harry and Louise” ads for the first couple to star in. He spoke at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner a month later, then reprised his role in 1996.
When Franken ran for the Senate in 2008, Hillary campaigned for him twice, flying into Duluth for an eleventh-hour rally that Franken credits with putting him over the top.
“I wouldn’t be senator from Minnesota if it hadn’t been for her,” he said in February.
Franken went on to endorse Clinton for president long before most of his Senate colleagues, delivering this off-the-cuff announcement in December 2014. (NB: He didn’t bother to wait for Elizabeth Warren, a fellow progressive, to rule out a bid, or for Bernie Sanders to get up and running.)
And not only has Franken spent this year’s primary season stumping for Clinton throughout the country, but also he responded to mean tweets (a la “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”) in a campaign Web ad, deploying his trademark humor on Hillary’s behalf.
That said, Clinton has a lot of loyal surrogates and longtime allies; almost none of them appear on her VP list. The real reason Franken suddenly has a shot, however slim, isn’t his relationship with the nominee.
It’s Donald Trump.
Which brings us to…
Odds: Not impossible — but still very unlikely.
Trump’s improbable rise has made Franken attractive as a running mate in ways he wouldn’t have been if a more conventional Republican — say, Marco Rubio — had won the GOP nomination.
If the Manhattan mogul has any superpowers, they are his celebrity, his unpredictability and his shamelessness, all of which allow him to dominate news cycle after news cycle by saying things — insulting things, offensive things, shocking things, self-contradictory things — that “normal” presidential candidates wouldn’t say.
He is also notoriously thin-skinned.
The thinking behind the “Franken for VP” boomlet is that Franken — an SNL-trained comedian who has skewered Fox News and dueled with Ann Coulter — would be fast enough on his feet, and clever and combative enough with his comebacks, to fluster Trump. To deflate him. To leave him looking absurd.
Franken is “the funniest person in Congress,” fellow Minnesota Democrat Rep. Keith Ellison said earlier this month. “Why does that matter? I think it’s important to lampoon Donald Trump, make him what he is: ridiculous. Who better to do that than someone who is an expert funnyman?”
Franken has other advantages as well. He would make history as the first Jewish vice president. His liberal populism could help persuade at least some young Sanders voters not to snub Clinton on Election Day. (Franken was an early Wall Street critic who won reelection by 10 points in the midst of a Republican wave by “selling progressive policy ideas in simple, everyman terms.”) He has shown that he can connect with working-class Rust Belters, potentially blunting Trump’s impact in purple states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. Finally, plucking Franken from the Senate wouldn’t endanger a potential Democratic majority; the governor of Minnesota, a Democrat himself, would simply appoint a Democrat to replace him. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the senators on Clinton’s list — Warren, New Jersey’s Cory Booker, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown — would be replaced by Republicans.
So what’s not to like?
Franken has been a serious and studious legislator since arriving in the Senate in 2009. He rarely indulges in comedy these days, and he tends to avoid the media spotlight. Still, he is better known as a comedian than a politician — and, in that sense, his greatest strength is also his greatest weakness.
The typical knock on Franken is that his humorous Hollywood history — bestiality jokes from Playboy and other crude or controversial material — would sink him in the veepstakes.
But Clinton is smart enough to know that this stuff didn’t stop Franken from winning two Senate races, and that Trump’s own past, which is more colorful than Franken’s, and his current rhetoric, which is not a joke, would neutralize any of the senator’s remaining vulnerabilities.
Instead, Clinton is unlikely to pick Franken because of how the pick might be perceived — especially among voters who still see him as SNL self-help guru Stuart Smalley. Like she’s not taking the job seriously. Like she’s stooping to Trump’s level. Like she thinks this election is one big television show.
That may be why a recent Monmouth University poll showed that only 12 percent of voters said they’d be more likely to vote for Clinton with Franken on the ticket — while 21 percent said they’d be less likely.
None of which is fair to Franken, of course. But it’s a risk that Clinton wouldn’t be taking with Kaine or even Warren as her running mate — and Hillary isn’t much of a risk taker.
