That Rumble You Heard Was O’Reilly Turning Over In His Grave: How The Far Right Elected Al Franken
“I don’t know if we’ve ever had an opponent who is so disliked by Republicans as Al Franken,” said Minnesota Republican Party Chair Ron Carey. “It’s one thing to lose to an honorable opponent, but Al Franken is not considered an honorable opponent by Minnesota Republicans.”
If Mr. Carey and the rest of the Republicans would like to see how they’ve come to realize their - as well as Bill O’Reilly’s worst nightmare - they need only look in the mirror.
When I sat down in 2002 to speak with Franken about how seemingly adversarial conditions played a positive part in his life for my book, “Great Failures of the Extremely Successful,” he had no idea that some of his greatest adversaries would help him to become a member of one of America’s most exclusive clubs…the U.S. Senate.
Back then I brought up the possibility of Franken going in to talk radio, but he intimated it was probably the last thing he would do. Funny, it ended up becoming just that, right before he ran for the Minnesota senate seat held by Republican Norm Coleman.
(ad#med-square] Air America was not yet a twinkle in the liberal’s eye, and despite his book, “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot and other Observations” Franken was still more known for his comedy than he was for his political stance. His “Strange Bedfellows” bits on Comedy Central during the 96 election with then Republican Arianna Huffington were just a small hint of the direction Franken was heading.
The straw that broke the far right wing’s back came in the form of a 2003 law suit where the right-wing elevated the comic/author Franken from comic and author to Michael Moore danger level.
Penguin Books published Franken’s book “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right,” which included a cover photo of O’Reilly and a chapter accusing O’Reilly of lying. The book had sold fairly well, but would have run its course until Fox News, pushed by O’Reilly taking the bait, sued claiming infringement of its registered trademark phrase “Fair and Balanced.” A federal judge found the lawsuit to be “wholly without merit” and Fox then filed to dismiss it. With the media attention drawn by the legal folly, Franken’s sales and his public image went bonkers. He not only beat O’Reilly and made him appear thin-skinned and toothless, but his books and satirical approach taught the Democrats to fight back creatively. More importantly, he gave open-minded Republicans a bit of the truth behind far-right talk show zealots claims. Claims that had pretty much gone without scrutiny even by the so-called liberal mainstream media who were happy to book people like Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Ann Coulter to get their take on politics.
Franken began his Minnesota campaign far behind Coleman, with all talk show hosts writing him off as a ridiculous no-chance candidate. After winning the Democratic primary, the Minnesota Republican Party released a letter about an article, Franken, a long time satirist, had written for Playboy magazine in 2000 entitled “Porn-O-Rama!” The letter, signed by six prominent GOP women, including a state senator and state representative, called on Franken to apologize for what they referred to as a “demeaning and degrading” article. Radio Right grabbed the story and pushed it for weeks.
Rather than paint Franken as a deviant, it drew even more support and closed the divide between him and Coleman. The more venom the right threw at Franken, the more money came in to his campaign and the less he had to spend to get a camera or microphone in front of him. Franken had already had notoriety but the Republicans attempt to turn Franken into Fagin gave his race a national je ne sais quoi.
Meanwhile, O’Reilly, continued to attack Franken as well as whomever didn’t lay down for Bill’s side of an argument. O’Reilly’s public skewering of then presidential candidate, Chris Dodd, who fought back toe to toe, sent Dodd’s campaign coffers to over-flowing. Bill’s frequent jabs and well-publicized distaste for Keith Olbermann that fueled the MSNBC franchise’s rating confirms he has yet to learn that there’s always a hook hidden within the bait.
It’s not a stretch to believe that without O’Reilly, Franken wouldn’t not have entered the Senate race, let alone won.
Carey and pretty much any other Republican talk show host you put in front of a microphone will tell you Franken stole the election. It didn’t keep him from taking his seat and just makes them just look all the more the losers.
This isn’t to say the Left is unfamiliar with aiding and abetting their own demons. For years the left has built up Limbaugh’s profile by making him their number one enemy. Moveon.org’s General Petraeus/Betrayus ad backfired big time. Barack Obama made Sean Hannity so much of a talking point that radio talk’s number two now uses Obama’s Hannity soundbites as his radio show’s intro.
They say the negative campaigning works . My guess is that neither side will ever learn that throwing dirt not only gets your own hands dirty but it can boomerang into making the person you aimed at extremely sympathetic.
It’s not that Franken won’t have a rocky road in the Senate. Normally, no matter how dirty the campaign, the victor has a honeymoon period. Franken won’t even have time to lock the hotel room door before the honeymoon receives its cease and desist order. He can only hope that O’Reilly won’t stop trying to ruin the marriage.
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forwarded to minn’e’sot’un’ friend. i think she’ll appreciate it.
Good article. I am reading it 6 weeks after the fact, so this will probably get read by exactly no one, but:
The Minnesota GOP belief that Franken stole the election hearkened me back to Tricky Dicky, Mr. Nixon, and the 1960 election. I was just 11 then, so I had no capacity to see the ins and outs of that at the time. The story of Nixon getting stiffed by Mayor Daley (no pun intended?) having dead people vote and lots of people vote lots of times is part of election night lore. I had pretty much accepted that there was some truth to it, since my parents voted for Nixon and what the hell did I know.
Now, this with Franken has me thinking. The Minnesota system did everything but back flips and blow jobs to give both candidates ever consideration. Sure, Al was trailing Norm when the recount started. Getting a recount in itself is not stealing an election, but I suppose to the GOP it could be interpreted that way. There IS this thing called election law that spells it all out, and nothing in that says that the pre-recount or pre-certification counts are official. But if they want to argue that for the next 48 years, like the GOP arguing Daley gave Kennedy the election of 1960, I guess we can let them.
Back in 1960, Democrats didn’t think it would matter what the GOP was claiming; Kennedy won, so fuck you, Nixon.
But - and this is why I am writing - Nixon never forgot that, never let it go. I am as convinced now as I was in 1974 that Nixon’s belief that his election was stolen was behind everything Watergate, from his dirty tricks group, to the break-in itself, to his wiping out 19-1/2 minutes of tape, and to Dick Cheney being Gerald Ford’s White House Chief of Staff.
And that led to Dick Cheney nominating himself to be the Vice Presidential candidate in 2000, to the theft of the Florida election in that year, and to the theft of the Ohio vote in 2004. It also led to the NSA wiretaps - “Fuck you, John Sirica,” Cheney says every night before he tucks himself in. It led to every bit of the concept of the unitary President, as Cheney decried back in 1974-6 the yielding of Presidential powers, and he carried that anger with him in January 2001. Then he used 9/11 to steal powers that no President has had since Adolph Hitler, and Cheney didn’t even notice that was another country.
I can tie all this back to Daley and the alleged theft of an election. Only Nixon, the McCarthy era Republican goon, could have something fester that long.
But we aware: The GOP is trying to create another “Daley stole the election” piece of bull crap.
I agree that Al Franken would never have gotten so far without the GOP showing their true colors.
But do you expect them to admit they fucked up?
Of course not.
.
“Moveon.org’s General Petraeus/Betrayus ad backfired big time.”
Well, what do you expect when you let Karl Rove write the headline for you?
Nobody knows if the ad had anything valid to say because nobody got beyond the headline.