Part 2 of 2: Minnesotans were duped by a foul-mouthed "Saturday Night Live" comic and gag writer in one of the nastiest political campaigns in state history. The issue is still in doubt.

(Editor's note: Last week Gary Larson examined pre-election anomalies in the Franken-Coleman race, and the one-way nature of newly-found votes in the "recount," thrusting Al Franken into the lead by 225 votes. Now the election is in the "contest phase" (lawsuit) under state law, with the issue. Franken has NOT been certified as the winner. This week Larson, once a Minnesota newspaper editor, reflects on how the Franken campaign played to the naivety of voters, smearing Senator Coleman, while news staffs were blind to Franken's campaign deceits and outrages. Part 1 of this article appeared here on Jan. 26.)

Fair-play lovers can only shake their heads in disbelief at the nastiness leading up to the November 4 election in Minnesota, then the maneuvering after the election, that propelled the petulant professional comic Al Franken into the lead by 225 votes after trailing by 725 on election night, a neat turnabout of 950 votes if anyone's counting.

"Minnesota Nice," a modest civility that once characterized the state, did not kick in to counter Franken's mendacity in a campaign that slimed incumbent Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), including calling him names, including criminal, and tool of crass special interests.

It was one of the dirtiest, most deceitful campaigns in Minnesota history. News media took to the sidelines and watched with disinterest, as if witnessing a wrestling match. Franken distorted Coleman's record every day, flinging mud, without much notice. Even so, on the eve of the election, over 20 editorial pages of Minnesota newspapers, mostly liberal, endorsed the Republican, Coleman.

Supremely ironic, in light of news media inattention to Franken's misstatements of facts, the editorial pages specifically, and in every daily newspaper, cited Coleman's ability to "reach across the aisle" in bipartisanship to "get things done." No RINO, mild-mannered Coleman was the pragmatic one. But his soft-spoken nature (not a screaming memie as Franken was) did not help the ex-St. Paul mayor's chances.

Whether out of naivety based on ignorance, or apathy, and/or the lack of sound judgment, more than 1.2 million Minnesotans, incredibly (that number) voted for hate-filled ex-pornographer, the potty-mouthed Franken. It did not matter, evidently, that Coleman's record was misrepresented, his character besmirched, in Franken's mud-tossing.

Even local DFL (Democrat Farmer Labor) party leaders, including one already in Congress, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), recoiled in horror at Franken's sexism, his crudeness, after her party endorsed him in a rancorous state convention last summer in Rochester. One distaff party member ran un-endorsed against him in the primaries, calling him totally unfit for the job. She knew something.

Franken was born in New York City to a printing salesman and his wife, and was raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. After graduation from Harvard he toiled in the Big Apple, achieving considerable success. He paid his dues as part of a comedy team, Franken & Davis, and singly hit the Big Time as a gag writer, stand-up comic, then a starring headliner on NBC-TV's Saturday Night Live, for two decades.

One of his sketches at SNL depicted a widely-known TV anchorwoman being raped, just for fun, to show her up. Real funny, huh? Some of his Stuart (his middle name) Smalley sketches ("I'm good enough, dog gone it") were laugh riots. Not so his books, especially one he had grad students at Columbia mainly write, but for which he took credit as author on the New York Times best-seller list. Such is the man's duplicity.

Later, after well-paid gigs across the country, and guest appearances such as on Jay Leno's Tonight show, Franken got into liberal talk radio, hosting the liberal network Air America's flagship program, The Al Franken Show. (What else?) It was an abysmal failure.

His on-air spewing of hatred toward Republicans, coming naturally, and conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, didn't take. Stations canceled. Bills went unpaid. Meanwhile, Franken failed to pay workers' comp premiums for his employees, thus to be fined $25,000 later by the State of New York. For not paying income taxes in states where he earned income from his comedy gigs, he blamed his accountant. But even "dumb jocks" know to pay income tax to states wherein they perform. Not rocket science, that. So much for Franken's financial acumen.

(Aside: Why do liberal Democrats have so darn much trouble paying taxes they would gladly impose on others?)

What were so many Minnesotans thinking? Or were they? Were 1.2 million blind and deaf to a ranting liberal sexist clown, "Crazy Al," who would represent their state in the United States Senate? Arguably, the clown image there is quite fitting. (Imagine Senator "Chuck" Schumer in clown garb and Emmett Kelly makeup. Yes we can.)

Electing Franken, if that travesty happens, could not be from Minnesotans' lack of formal education. Yes, the state's professorial class, same as elsewhere, is virtually 100% liberal, by educational inbreeding and the natural selection of professors. Still, no excuses! The number of college grads over age 25 in Minnesota exceeds the national average by nearly 8 % — 32.8% vs. 25%. So it couldn't be lack of formal education, indicating instead, a lack of critical facilities or outright gullibility to accept demagoguery somehow as real.

What went horribly wrong? Why did Al's transparent demagoguery, his fist-shaking, fool so many? Now Minnesota folks are said to be pretty smart, definitely above average, all of them, if we are to believe native state author Garrison Keillor. Those who saw through Franken's wild-eyed fabrications, or viscerally disliked Coleman, had an electable third man alternative in the race, Dean Barkley, a good and decent man. (Barkley was a U.S. Senator for a brief spell, filling in as Governor Ventura's appointee for a couple months in the late Senator Wellstone's seat. He did pull down about 15% of the vote.)

What to do, then, to set the record straight, for Coleman?  Tough business, politics, always bowing to the latest scummy story. Never know which way to turn. Coleman tried a futile defamation lawsuit against Franken, only to have it tossed by a lower court, one more legal action falling, like dominoes, invariably in favor of the liberal Democrat.

Franken was feverishly anti-Bush, frothing at the mouth, against the war. Successfully, if that is the word, he linked Coleman to Bush, as Obama did for John McCain. Shifty tricks do work. At the least, they detract from real issues. Easy analogies, "links" (sometimes referred to as "ties to") are picked up by the public as if ex cathedra. By sheer repetition, if nothing else, "charges" stick. (Lies need repetition to gain credibility, maybe?) Bush's errors along the way were seen as Coleman's errors among the inattentive.

Using a sitting president's unpopularity as springboard, Franken pointed out Coleman "voted with the president 89%." But Democrats also voted "with the president" a lot, on routine bills ("No Child Left Behind", et al.), and then some. Notably, Senator Hillary Clinton voted with him also about winning foreign wars, such as against our nation's Islamo-fascist enemies that so many on the liberal side, would like to ignore. "Voting with" is a statistic without meaning.

Franken's TV spots drew God knows how many votes. Negative campaigns work. (Expect more, even lower-level, in the future.) His fiery, hand-waving spots and print ads portrayed Coleman as a kept politician of Big Oil, Big Everything. It was as if Coleman was selling Senate votes to the highest bidder, a la Illinois politics. Coleman was not his own man, they claimed, despite the fact– if anyone dared to check facts — he was one of the most independent of Republicans in the Senate as told in non-partisan, Pew-like surveys.

Tarring and feathering Coleman became blood sport. He was labeled by Al as "one of the four most corrupt senators in the country." In fact Franken's bogus "corruption" charge was traced to a "survey" by a Franken buddy, an eastern Dem party wonk. It was a set-up job.

Coleman was also "accused," if that is the word, of living in a million-dollar D.C. mansion. Well, he did. That much was true. It was pictured majestically in one of Franken's TV spots. In fact, the austere, less-than-well-off Coleman, no "celebrity," rented a room there, in the basement, for $600 bucks a month. Not a millionaire, as Franken is, Coleman had his eyes on putting his kids through college.

Then Franken changed his tune, falsely accusing (what else?) Senator Coleman of "being investigated" for being put up in that mansion, at $600 a month, by a lobbyist friend named Jeff Larson (no relation). Another whopper. Larson was not a lobbyist, there was no investigation. It was campaign rhetoric trash. A lot of uncritical Minnesotans believed the crap. Pity them.

Such chutzpah paid off in votes for this expatriate who returned jobless a year before to Minnesota to run for this office. He was the celebrity people knew from Saturday Night Live. (Next up, Chevy Chase for President?) Name recognition was a snap. For some unfathomable reason, the sheep-like flock to "celebrity." (It did not hurt that "Rs" Ronald Reagan and later Arnold Schwarzenegger were big-name celebrities.)

Minnesota is a mainly populist state going back to "prairie populism" of the early 20th century, when its farmers were dealt with harshly, unfairly by financial giants "out East." Until this year, the state was known for its "squeaky clean" politics. No real corruption. And it has the highest voting percentages in the nation – nearly 70% of eligibles vote, made easy by same-day registration, a magnet for fraud, truth be told.

Franken devotees gave him a virtual a tie. All the factors — voter ignorance, folks falling for wild-eyed claims and distortions of Coleman's record, etc.,– reflect badly on Minnesotans. After all, they did have three real choices in this election – Coleman, Franken and "the other guy," Barkley. The fault lies not in the stars, then, but in themselves.

Coleman's responses to Franken's consistent stream of deceits and dirt were light-hearted, and apparently did not take. (Light humor cannot defeat dirt spit balls?) Statewide media were loathe to dispute Franken's spurious charges, even though their editorial pages later on (in a guilt-expiating move?) uniformly endorsed Coleman based on — guess what? — his Senate record and as conciliatory mayor of St. Paul. The fact that Coleman was once a DFLer helped, perhaps, among editorial writers. To staunch DFLers, of course, he was a turncoat, traitor, thus worthy only of spit to the more avid ones. Such is the "tolerance" of the New Left?

Mild-mannered, some say wimpish, but no RINO, pro-life Coleman tried to keep to the high road. His campaign took meant-to-be-humorous pokes at Franken's blustering, but never hit any home runs. Lies travel halfway across the world, it is said, while truth gets its shoes on. (Old old saying.)

Coleman made much of Franken's income taxes mess and W/C premiums unpaid for his workers. To no avail. Media slept. Coleman did send-ups of Franken's "making up things" as a gag writer and author of books with "lying" (ironically) in the title. Coleman's shots also aimed at Franken's demonstrable unhinged nature, verging on his physical assault on all who dare to disagree with him.

One Coleman TV spot featured three bowling buddies making light of Franken's pornography (in Playboy) and his crude, off-base remarks. Smirking to the camera, the middle-American bowlers said they, too, could be a Senator, given those gutter-level credentials. The public evidently didn't "get it" about the bowlers three, nor about Franken's "making things up." Too subtle for the partisan obtuse?

In exasperation, Coleman gave up. No longer did his campaign respond to Franken's erroneous, incendiary remarks, aimed at the DFL base, perhaps in more ways than one. Coleman declared a moratorium on his "negative" ads, truth-telling or not, and stuck to it. Franken attacked that move, too, as a clever ploy.

Coleman relied heavily on the good sense and old-fashioned decency of Minnesotans they were a-changing. Going easy on Franken's misrepresentations of reality, defining Coleman so unfairly, was a mistake; it was ground never to be made up from the 10% bulge in polls Coleman once enjoyed. Franken's unmerciful attacks continued unabated. Lack of factual basis for Franken's allegations, went right by snoozing news staffs, but was picked up by the alert-to-issues folks writing for the editorial pages. Basically, the fourth estate failed again, to tell the whole truth. No wonder newspapers are on the ropes.

In retrospect, the pre-election funny business (illegitimate votes, double-counted ones, etc.), and post-election manipulation (by Franken's crafty lawyers), plus the actions — or, non-actions — of the DFL-led Canvassing Board and local courts, paved the way for Franken's 225-vote current advantage. The issue is still in doubt. Likely it winds up in the United States Supreme Court. Think Florida 2000.

If Minnesotans thought jokes came hot and heavy in the wake of Governor Ventura's election, wait for late-night jokes to erupt on the national scene about the new Clown Prince of the United State Senate, "Crazy Al" Franken — if he wins, that is. It would be a deep deep well for gag writers, amounting to final victory of dirty campaign rhetoric, whoppers by the dozen, sleaze over facts, stirred-up animosity over rational judgment . . .. 

In the aftermath, what respectable person would wish to run for national office only to be viciously assaulted in such a way as Franken's scurrilous attacks on Coleman?

Already some on the near and far Left have complained about the "whining of right wing" soreheads. In this they will be adhering to a credo in their Saul Alinsky-driven liberal orthodoxy: Do anything — lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes — to "win." Is it, truly, party first?

To Republicans and independents, the present outrage gives new meaning to the admonition of radio talk host Hugh Hewitt, as found in the title of his book: If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats In Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It" (Thomas Nelson, 2004). Wise old Hugh is definitely on to something.