How SNL helped prepare two-term senator AL FRANKEN for the absurdity of Congress
On a sunny spring afternoon in a Washington apartment downslope from the Capitol, Minnesota’s Democratic junior senator, Al Franken, took stock of a busy and, well, strange week during which he made a rare mention of his previous career—a writer-performer for SNL—while grilling a former reality TV star’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. Having been reelected in a landslide for a second term after squeaking into the Senate through a recount for his first, Franken, 66, has written a clear-eyed and, yes, frank memoir, Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, covering everything from his days at NBC to his emergence as a leader of the loud legislative resistance.
Charles P. Pierce: I did a profile of John McCain back in 1998 when I joined Esquire, and I talked to [Minnesota senator Paul] Wellstone, just because I wanted to talk to Wellstone and now I had an excuse. I’ve never met a guy with so many enthusiasms.
Al Franken: He had unbelievable energy and heart and intellect. I never really considered running for office until after he died, and I read the first profile of [his Republican successor] Norm Coleman in Roll Call, and Coleman, who’s chewing on an unlit cigar with his feet up on his desk, says, “To be very blunt . . . I am a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone.”
CPP: And rather than driving up to his house and punching him in the face, you ran against him in 2008.
This story is from the June/July 2017 edition of Esquire.
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This story is from the June/July 2017 edition of Esquire.
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