Apparently the right-wing is secretly really psyched that Al Franken won, because now they can criticize him! Or something. As Dave Weigel observes, there’s a certain lack of logic here. It’s worth considering that Franken had a lot of obstacles during this campaign that won’t be a problem as he runs for re-election. A lot of folks had trouble taking a comedian seriously as a potential Senator. By 2014, everyone will be used to the idea. And time has a way of making “carpetbagger” concerns go away.
Beyond that, I’m fairly certain that people are going to come to see that like him or not, Franken is deadly serious about progressive politics. His career transition really didn’t happen all that suddenly, and certainly wasn’t the most obvious or easy thing for him to do with his life. But he did it because he thought it was important. His past career gave his opponents a certain amount of fodder for criticism, but going forward you’re not going to see anything like that. No seat is ever safe in Minnesota, which is both pretty closely divided and has a habit of sometimes electing real liberals, but the toughest race for someone with an unusual background is the first one.
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