New York State Of Mind

Scott Johnson brought this to our attention this morning.

When Democrats this spring sized up Al Franken's bid to win a Senate seat in his native Minnesota, they saw plenty of promising signs: an engaging and famously funny candidate familiar to voters, a stockpile of campaign cash, and a vulnerable incumbent Republican.

Less than three months before Election Day, however, the Republican seat held by a former New Yorker, Norm Coleman, looks safer than ever, and Mr. Franken's hopes could be doomed by his own New York past.

This gist of the article is that New Yorkers are not "nice" enough for Minnesota Nice. Now I do have to take slight umbrage with that as I am married to a New Yorker (upstate New York but a New Yawka all the same) and I do a weekly internet radio show with another upstate New Yorker (strangely enough from the next town over from where the Logical Husband grew up). I "get" the New York "state of mind" a little bit better than most Midwesterners do. What Minnesotans see as "brusque", New Yorkers call "getting business done". Where Minnesotans take their time when it comes to doing almost everything, New Yorkers are more decisive. The New York way of life is faster paced than life in the Cities is....something that still drives the Logical Husband to distraction - even though he has lived in the Upper Midwest for the last 20 years.

Time Magazine took a look at Franken's problems in Joel Stein's profile of the candidate.

If running for Senate were an Olympic event, Franken would win. If it were a battle of wills or a name-recognition poll or some kind of nerdy trivia battle, he'd win those too. Even if it were just a question of having people agree with your policies, he'd win a Senate seat in the state, where Barack Obama is ahead of John McCain. But getting elected means making people believe you can relate to them, and that's why Franken—writer, actor, comedian, talk-show host and longtime denizen of Saturday Night Live—is running behind Republican Senator Norm Coleman.

They are right that it is more a matter of connecting with people and Senator Coleman is pro at that. Having interacted with Senator Coleman on a number of occasions, I have watched him walking through crowds of people and speaking with someone as if they were the ONLY person in the room. Senator Coleman connects with the voters. Senator Coleman is also from New York so what is the difference here?

What has dogged Franken, throughout the campaign is his own well crafted persona.

Which is the other challenge that comes with tempering Franken's sense of humor: he can't use it to hide his aggression. Franken is that rare confrontational nerd, the tough Jew of a generation before him instead of the smoother, modern one that Coleman exemplifies. He still has the chest and disposition of a high school wrestler, and he famously took down a disruptive heckler at a Howard Dean rally in 2004.

Then there is the almost infamous incident at the 2004 Convention where Franken started shoving around the producer of the Laura Ingraham show. Franken spent many years, refining his public persona - first on Saturday Night Live as a writer and featured actor and then again on Air America where he tried to be the left's version of Bill O'Reilley. The main problem with that is O'Reilley has no plans on running for elected office so he can be as outrageous as he wants. That is killing Franken now.

I think a lot of Franken's troubles in the race for Senator Coleman's seat have not been his New York state of mind or his sense of humor. For as the New York Magazine said...

Priscilla Lord Faris, a former supporter turned opponent, sums up Franken's problem thusly: "We kind of call it the New York City problem," she said. Please. Franken doesn't have a New York City problem; he just has the same problem Giuliani had, which is that he's not very funny.

Some of his jokes were pretty funny, but many were not. His campaign for Senate has not been funny either. His has run this race for Senate from a defensive position almost the entire time. By not getting out in front of the offensive jokes and the Workers Comp issue AND the tax issues, Al Franken allowed his opponent to define his candidacy and THAT is what is killing him today. Now it is too late for him to get in front of these issues. The race is essentially over (barring another plane crash). At this point, all Franken can do is muddle through to the end so that he can go back to dong what he does best - being the brash confrontational Air America host that conservatives everywhere "love to hate".