I dunno what Franken some of you are listening to, but the one I’ve heard for years on Air America is a middle-of-the-road Democrat, very mainstream. Sure, compared to Rush he’s extreme left. But compared with most people, he’s perhaps slightly left than average. Nothing to scare the children with.
IIRC, Franken was a friend and great admirer of Paul Wellstone. He (Franken) has long identified himself as a Minnesotan, starting with his first book. Spending years in NY and CA because that’s where his career as an entertainer led him doesn’t take the MN out of a guy.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, and have no problem with anyone running for office as long as they meet the qualifications, but…
Just how much does he “admire” Paul Wellstone? PW was known as one of the most liberal guys in Congress when he was alive (not that there’s anything wrong with that). If AF’s views are anything like PW’s, then I’d be pretty dubious of the idea that he’s a middle-of-the-road Democrat (not that there’s anything wrong with that, either).
Did you know that Ben Stein, of Win Ben Steins Money, a B-level celebrity just to the left of Otto von Bismarck…gave Franken $1,000. When asked why he contributed to such a wild lefty, he is reported to have answered “Al Franken is the smartest man I ever met.”
What a splendid bi-partisan gesture it might be if Franken were to choose Ben Stein for his running mate? And, then of course…
(I can’t bring myself to actually type it. Its that bad.)
He seems to have admired Wellstone’s passion, idealism, feistiness, generosity, intelligence and kindness. (Doesn’t take a Democrat or liberal to appreciate such traits, and indeed even some Republicans found much to admire in Wellstone.) But Franken’s views are hardly a match with Wellstone’s. If Wellstone were alive, Franken would surely have disagreed with him on several current issues; for example, Franken is much more of a hawk, and it took him longer to rail against the Iraq war than was palatable to most of us who fall in the Wellstonian spectrum of the Democratic party.
Of course i’ve heard him, and I’ve read several of his books. I honestly haven’t seen him espouse any legislative policies which I would say were out of the mainstream. He’s more or less right about where Hillary is. The most extreme positions he takes are things like support for universal health care, gun control (which I disagree with him on but which he’ll never get anywhere with anyway), same-sex marriage and rolling back tax cuts.
Believe it or not, Franken actually supported the invasion of Iraq in the beginning.
You seriously can’t just simply state some of his views you find to be extreme?
Like you said, it’s not GD, so you don’t need cites.
It looks to me like you were just repeating what someone told you about Franken, and don’t really know his views.
Okay, Rysdad is going to punk out, obviously. However, Chimera actually spends time looking at the candidates, dude. He’ll be by any time to tell us about Franken’s positions that indicate he is on the political fringe.
Of course, choie and Revtim are exactly right. Franken is no more fringe than any other middle of the road democrat.
