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A few weeks ago, the local Sorosphere tried to unload their brickbats at Michael Brodkorb for reporting that Al Franken’s handlers were working hard to insulate the former comic and SNL star from reporters.
“Pshaw” they said. Not exactly Pshaw, although I think the word is long overdue for a comeback.
But the story’s gone all national now; Kevin Duschere, of the Strib’s Big Question blog, notes:
According to The Atlantic Monthly, reporters covering Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race this year shouldn’t count on getting a lift from Al Franken.
That’s one of the amusing bits arising out of a largely flattering piece in the May Atlantic on Franken, considered the favorite to secure the DFL Party endorsement to run against incumbent Norm Coleman this fall.
The theme of the story by Atlantic senior editor Joshua Green is that Franken, who has built a wildly successful career out of being both funny and confrontational, needs to convince Minnesotans that he’s as serious and somber — and presumably dull — a candidate as any of the rest of them.
One of the ways for the Franken campaign to do this, according to Green, is to limit face time for reporters with the candidate as much as possible, to avoid the chance that he will make an unguarded remark that will explode into the headlines the next day.
Green found this out when he wasn’t allowed to ride along with Franken and his staff on a campaign swing in February through St. Paul, the suburbs and Isanti County.
Can you imagine if Michele Bachmann’s handlers kept reporters from seeing she was conservative? Or if Jesse Ventura was crazy? Or that Tim Pawlenty is a lawyer? Like all of those, “Funny” and “unpredictable” is Franken’s stock in trade. Is it honest, keeping that from the public?
Maybe, maybe not. You be the judge.
Cross-posted and brickbats comments welcome at Shot In The Dark.
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