Al Franken, Giant of the Senate
From Senator Al Franken – #1 bestselling author and beloved SNL alum – comes the story of an award-winning comedian who decided to run for office and then discovered why award-winning comedians tend not to do that.
This is a book about an unlikely campaign that had an even more improbable ending: the closest outcome in history and an unprecedented eight-month recount saga, which is pretty funny in retrospect.
It’s a book about what happens when the nation’s foremost progressive satirist gets a chance to serve in the United States Senate and, defying the low expectations of the pundit class, actually turns out to be good at it.
It’s a book about our deeply polarized, frequently depressing, occasionally inspiring political culture, written from inside the belly of the beast.
In this candid personal memoir, the honorable gentleman from Minnesota takes his army of loyal fans along with him from Saturday Night Live to the campaign trail, inside the halls of Congress, and behind the scenes of some of the most dramatic and/or hilarious moments of his new career in politics.
Has Al Franken become a true Giant of the Senate? Franken asks readers to decide for themselves.
As the person who personally got Al Franken elected to office the first time around, I’m sure I’m in this book in several places. I haven’t checked yet, but I thought you should know about the book.
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
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Looks interesting and not a story I’m at all familiar with here. Thanks.
So, upshot is, occassionally joke candidates actually can work out well?
Actually, no. Franken was never for a moment a joke candidate. He was a serious person who happened to be a comedian who shifted to politics, ran, won, and is now regarded as one of the better senators, probably the smartest or in the top three.
A joke candidate would be something like Screaming Lord Such in the UK. If a comedian decides to change jobs, they don’t become a joke plumber or a joke banker or a joke teacher. So they wouldn’t be a joke candidate for office either.
For his first couple of years as Senator, Senator Franken would always correct people if they called him a former comedian. “Satirist. I was a satirist.”
Meh, I’d call him Senator. Or Mr Franken.
I’d call Trump “Ook”.
If we are lucky, he will run for President with his good friend Kathy Griffin…