Comments on: Al Franken Commercial

By: rea

rea — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:55:15 +0000

Is it just me or does Norm Coleman (circa 1971) look like Charles II of Spain?

That’s probably a flattering portrait of poor Charles II—imagine how that nose would look in profile.

It’s not really fair to make fun of Norm Coleman for having been a long-haired dope-smoking rock fan back in ‘71—that’s the only likeable thing I’ve ever heard about him. Not quite as outre as Bill Bennett dating Janis Joplin, but still . .

By: vkv

vkv — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:18:41 +0000

Is it just me or does Norm Coleman (circa 1971) look like Charles II of Spain? Norm Coleman Charles II

By: theo

theo — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:46:30 +0000

I don’t know whether Coleman has a womanizing history or not, but the rumor is that he does a lot of man-izing and that his is a marriage of convenience.

IIRC Minneapolis locals including Garrison Keillor say his overt extracurricular activities are with women. Which of course doesn’t exclude the possibility of men. I’m sure Coleman has been through in Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport quite a few times…

Anyway he had a good role model; his father, Norm Coleman Sr., was notoriously arrested with his pants off at the age of 81, having sex with a presumed hooker in a car parked outside a St. Paul pizza parlor. Not sure whether the cause was dementia or just loneliness.

Coleman is one of the most unpleasant-looking Senators, in my opinion. Unhealthy, creepy, and not good looking.

I will echo that. He’s one of the greasiest politicians around. And his blow-dry is remarkably bad, perhaps from overuse of his wife’s invention, the “Blo-and-Go.”

By: nick s

nick s — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:46:34 +0000

I don’t know whether Coleman has a womanizing history or not

His ‘skirt-chasing’ is allegedly an open secret in Minneapolis; his wife lives in California. The tenor of the attacks against Franken (the focus on his Playboy articles, for instance) has clearly been a case of ‘the Senator protests too much, methinks’.

By: Dave Weeden

Dave Weeden — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:31:02 +0000

Having gone to a rock concert in 1969 makes you “left”? Did I wake up in the wrong universe today? Actually, why won’t Obama discuss Woodstock? Does he have something to hide?

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:45:33 +0000

If they ran the whole thing as a commercial, I’d vote against Al Franken for subjecting me to the sheer awkwardness of it. I’ve started playing the clip three times—twice trying to watch it, once showing my fiancé—and in no instance was I capable of watching more than a minute.

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:42:47 +0000

Wasn’t Norm Coleman the Republican that ran to the “left” of Paul Wellstone, running ads pointing out that Wellstone hadn’t been at Woodstock, but Coleman had?

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:21:28 +0000

I don’t know whether Coleman has a womanizing history or not, but the rumor is that he does a lot of man-izing and that his is a marriage of convenience.

Coleman is one of the most unpleasant-looking Senators, in my opinion. Unhealthy, creepy, and not good looking.

By: Marc Mulholland

Marc Mulholland — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:29:44 +0000

Yeah, the Senator’s team didn’t really think the game-plan through for that press conference, did they?

By: Colin Danby

Colin Danby — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:28:19 +0000

I love the silences. It shouldn’t be cut.

By: Michael Drake

Michael Drake — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:18:04 +0000

One thing I’m not clear on: Has the senator reported every gift he’s ever received?

By: Donald A. Coffin

Donald A. Coffin — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:04:19 +0000

But, even for Minnesota voters, it might need some framing.

By: Marco

Marco — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:58:39 +0000

@theo: Thank you! It’s so hard to keep up, since PR flacks look and sound more-or-less the same.

By: theo

theo — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:13:29 +0000

The speaker is Norm Coleman’s press secretary—Norm Coleman is the Republican Senator from Minnesota whom Al Franken is running against.

Coleman isn’t rich but likes to live large, and he has a long history of taking “favors” from patrons. Including, apparently, men’s suits, utility bills, plane trips, and rent for his DC apartment.

He’s not actually a rent boy, though, in fact he has a long history of womanizing, to the point where his campaign actually had to film a commercial showing his wife and him in the same room together. Their physical interaction was so bizarre, by the standards of cliched political commercials, that some suspected it was done with green screen film tricks (apparently it wasn’t).

By: Jon Mandle

Jon Mandle — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:08:48 +0000

Franken is running for the Senate seat from Minnesota against the incumbent Norm Coleman.