Al Franken sounds restless. The disgraced former senator misses being in public office, and it sounds like he’s toying with the idea of staging a comeback, telling a CBS News affiliate in Minnesota this week that he hasn’t ruled out the idea of getting back in the game.
The moment occurred during an interview at Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig High School on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, where the former senator helped secure $12 million in renovations funding.
“That means a lot to me. It was very moving for me. It was very gratifying. I put my heart in the job,” Franken said. “I miss the whole job. I loved that job, I loved the job as senator.”
WCCO-TV reporter Esme Murphy asked, “Will you run for office again?”
“Well, see, if I say anything there, you’ll put it in the story. I don’t know. I don’t know,” Franken replied. “I haven’t ruled it out, and I haven’t ruled it in.”
He obviously misses the U.S. Senate. He also obviously thinks he was wronged by the #MeToo movement, which aims to call attention to sexual abuse and misconduct. Remember: When he resigned in December 2017, he was anything but contrite.
“All women deserve to be heard, and their experiences taken seriously,” he said just before claiming the allegations leveled against him “are not true.”
Franken portrayed himself as a strong advocate for women’s rights, which was supposed to make up for all the groping. He also played the victim, dismissing his accusers and pointing an angry finger at the Republican sexual misconduct scandals. His goodbye speech was half “I’m innocent,” and half “the Republicans are worse.”
He obviously believes he’s the victim in a story involving eight separate women and multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, including unwanted touching and forced kissing.
If you can believe it, the former senator isn’t the only one who thinks he was given a raw deal. Some Democrats have been out in the open for months now, working to rehabilitate his image and talking about the supposed wrongs that he suffered at the hands of eight alleged victims.
EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock and David Axelrod, for example, opined in April that the senator was asked to step down from office.
Axelrod referred to the resignation as “collateral damage” of the #MeToo movement. He also referred to the Franken episode as “unfair,” adding that it “feels like politics run amok a little bit.”
Schriock concurred, characterizing the Franken episode as a “painful time for everybody involved.” She added that the scandal was a “perfect storm” and that it was “incredibly frustrating.”Schriock, who headed Franken’s 2008 Senate campaign, continued, saying, “He was never going to do anything that wasn’t going to help the people of Minnesota … He loves, loves Minnesota and did not want to do anything to hurt or damage the people there.”
With efforts like this to whitewash the allegations leveled against Franken, it’s no wonder he’s musing openly about the possibility of getting back into public life. Perhaps his thinking is: If I wait long enough, this will all blow over and the tribe will go to bat for me.
Not a bad bet.
