Al Franken, Giant of the Senate

from amazon.com

This is a book about an unlikely campaign that had an even more improbable ending: the closest outcome in history and an unprecedented eight-month recount saga, which is pretty funny in retrospect.

It's a book about what happens when the nation's foremost progressive satirist gets a chance to serve in the United States Senate and, defying the low expectations of the pundit class, actually turns out to be good at it.

It's a book about our deeply polarized, frequently depressing, occasionally inspiring political culture, written from inside the belly of the beast.

In this candid personal memoir, the honorable gentleman from Minnesota takes his army of loyal fans along with him from Saturday Night Live to the campaign trail, inside the halls of Congress, and behind the scenes of some of the most dramatic and/or hilarious moments of his new career in politics.

Has Al Franken become a true Giant of the Senate? Franken asks readers to decide for themselves.

https://www.amazon.com/Al-Franken-Giant-Senate-ebook/dp/B01LL8BRRE

Author: Al Franken

U.S. Senator Al Franken was born on May 21, 1951, and grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. In 1973, he graduated from Harvard, where he met his wife Franni. They've been married for 40 years, and have two grown children, Thomasin and Joe. The couple's first grandchild, Joe, was born to Thomasin and her husband Brody in May 2013. Jacob, their second grandson, was born to Joe and his wife Stephanie in January 2016. Before running for the Senate, Al spent 37 years as a comedy writer, author, and radio talk show host and has taken part in seven USO tours, visiting our troops overseas in Germany, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Uzbekistan-as well as visiting Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait four times.

First elected to the Senate in 2008, and re-elected in 2014, he currently sits on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee; the Judiciary Committee; the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the Committee on Indian Affairs.

https://www.franken.senate.gov

Reviewed by: John Stokdijk

Reviewed 7/2/2017

Although I am a Canadian, I have been interested in American politics since teenage. In 2016 I was quite interested in the speculation about who Hillary Clinton would pick as her running mate. Al Franken’s name came up from time to time and after reading Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Al Franken I think he would have been an excellent choice.

Does Al Franken consider himself to be a giant of the senate? Of course not and his title is merely a reflection of his satirical sense of humor. In his book he does identify three giants - Ted Kennedy, Mike Mansfield and Ed Muskie.

During my life I rarely stayed up until 11:30 on a Saturday evening and I rarely watched Saturday Night Live. I had an underappreciation of satire. However, I enjoyed reading about this incredibly successful television show. Al Franken was there from the start in 1975 and in total was a significant contributor to SNL for fifteen seasons. It seems like an improbable career path for a future politician.

Even though we know the outcome, Franken’s run for the Senate still reads like a suspenseful political thriller. He had to prove that he could transcend his past as a comedian and be taken seriously as an aspiring senator. He had to survive a very nasty campaign. He had to endure a long recount process and court challenge. And Al Franken succeeded by the narrowest of margins.

There were intermediate steps from comedian to senator for Franken. He was the host of a radio show and the author of other books. In 1996 he published Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot: And Other Observations and in 2003 he published Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. These books and other activities such as speaking engagements helped establish him as a credible part of the progressive political landscape. But that was not the purpose for which he wrote them and he came to politics reluctantly.

This book may not be of interest to some from the right side of the political divide. But one does not need to accept Franken’s views in order to gain insight from this book. He describes with great clarity the election process and what it takes to win. He describes what it is really like to be a senator and much of the role is not glamorous. Reading this book and getting to know the real Al Franken beyond the caricature of him as a comedian helps us understand how he was able to surprise many, exceeding the expectations of supporters and opponents alike.

Franken is optimistic about the future but with a lot of realism:

My story, the one you’ve just finished reading, is a small part of a bigger story— the story of how progressives picked themselves up off the mat and made an epic comeback. And now we have to do it again. This comeback starts with standing up for our values…

There is a very warm story within the story of Al Franken:

First and foremost, I want to thank my wife, Franni, with whom I’ve been sharing this adventure for nearly forty-eight years.

Here is some useful advice for any reader of Giant. Do not neglect the footnotes! That is where some of the author’s best humor emerges, causing me, an overly serious individual, to occasionally laugh out loud.

Al Franken, Giant of the Senate debuted number one on The New York Times hardcover nonfiction best sellers list and is currently in its fourth week on the list in the number three spot.