I only read Playboy for the articles

I outgrew the Playboy phase many years ago and have not seen Al Franken’s article from January 2000 titled "Porn-O-Rama!". From what has been reported in the media the last two days, it seems to have been an article of dubious literary value. However, I suspect that the literary value of the article has become largely irrelevant. The article apparently contains material which might be offensive to many, both of constituencies to which the DFL caters/panders and the “pro-family” groups that usually ignore DFL candidates, but who could use this issue to their advantage well.

In a Minnesota Monitor article posted today [Real bottom line in Franken's Playboy snafu: Mike Ciresi is making his move] Steve Perry seems to feel that the timing of this story is part of a coordinated to bring the former candidate who ethically made himself rich with money which should have belonged to the state back into the race. Doug Grow in MinnPost seems to suspect that there might be a Ciresi surprise in the primary even if Franken is endorsed.

I remember that when Ciresi was in the race that he promised to support the endorsement this time, but I guess that the former candidate is not bound by what he said when he was a candidate. [Of course, if/when he is elected he will be a former candidate again. Look out!]

Perry and Grow may be right. I really do not know.

I just wonder about some things.

Like, isn’t there one aged former adolescent in the DFL leadership who knew about the article and bothered to read it without being distracted by the visual distractions the magazine affords before the vast majority of the party leadership had signed onto the man from New York’s campaign? Late revelations hurt but this would have had to been a lot easier to know about than the GOP’s learning in 1990 that Grunseth was unsuited

And if he had had even the remotest idea of ever entering political life in this or any other state why would have Al Franken have written it?

And, of course, why was this obviously available fact withheld from the marketplace of the news until a week before the DFL state convention?

As I noted earlier, I have not seen Franken’s article and likely won't, having to settle for whatever summaries are made available in the various media by analysts who have managed to read it without the distractions for which Playboy is noted. Being in that magazine is not necessarily fatal to a candidate. Some of us remember the famous Jimmy Carter interview which came out just before the 1976 election.

But this whole deal cannot be a boon to a candidacy which was trailing Norm before this all came out and that is probably what the Ciresi people will remind us.

As David Brauer quoted Congressperson Keith Ellison in another MinnPost story today, "If you're explainin', you ain't gaining."

I mentioned earlier March 15,

[B]etween the two of them [Coleman and Ciresi], there would have been no problem for me in deciding whom [Coleman] to support. And I would like to think that I would have taken the same position, no matter what imaginary enemy Ciresi and Skippy had taken on.”

With Franken it will be different.

If the DFL expects me to vote on their line in November they will have to have somebody who is not Ciresi but who isn’t extremely flaky. It is a good trick being flaky enough to win DFL support and not turn off the general electorate.

For city people to support a suburbanite over a city resident is always a dubious enough situation anyway and Franken is not making his case well so far. I guess that still holds and we will have to see what develops.

Other earlier post http://ccmusings.blogspot.com/2008/03/ciresi-out.html [March 10]

Al Franken's return to New York City

I saw Al Franken’s appearance on Letterman’s show last night. I don’t see anything inherently evil in the appearance, but it does remind me that show business takes care of its own sometimes. Remember Schwarzenegger on Leno?

But I do wonder if Norm couldn’t have given just as good a showing and certainly understand the frustration some of his people may have.

New York doesn’t seem interested in electing its own senators. Remember Robert Francis Kennedy from Massachusetts? Pat Moynihan from Massachusetts? Hillary Rodham from Arkansas?

Maybe his trip there is Franken’s assurance that if elected, that he’ll give New York back a senator they are missing.

Mike Ciresi and Norm Coleman, some observations

Midway Barb left a comment to my post ["Ciresi Out” 3/10/08] ago to which I have responded.

It occurs to me that perhaps the whole matter really merits being a post of its own, so I am excerpting her [or his] question and my reply here.

Midway Barb said

Isn't it true that your dislike of Ciresi comes from his role in the tobacco suit? If he had saved us from some other community nusance wouldn't you like him?

This is my response:

I think that Mr. Ciresi’s opportunistic exploitation of the cigarette industry is not the reason I could never support him for anything.

And it would not be because he is a trial lawyer. A lot of lawyers do good things and working on contingency is often the only way some litigation could be brought about.

Poor people or people of moderate means often hire attorneys on contingency when they have wrongs that need addressing. On big successful cases the attorneys make a real bundle, but it is often the only way that poor folks have access to the court system for redress for real wrongs.

But if I am to choose between Ciresi and Norm, there really isn’t much choice. One is a lawyer who used his profession to make a lot of money which should have belonged to either the stockholders of the tobacco companies or the taxpayers of Minnesota, depending on how you view the merits of the case. Norm worked for a salary for the attorney general’s office.

Politicians often try to scare people into helping their careers by citing bogus enemies or crises. [Remember W on Saddam or JFK on the missile crisis?] When Skippy wanted to find a bogus enemy to propel him to the governorship and decided to sue tobacco for wrongs to the citizens of Minnesota, wrongs more detectable from intuition than from any fact that the companies had forced smoke into people’s bodies, he wanted to make a real big splash and get money in ten or eleven digits. He needed to find a way to make billions in punitive damages. He doubted if any of the lawyers in his office could do the job, so he made a deal with Ciresi and his Robbins law firm. He and Ciresi hoped that if they could sue for enough money and tie up the tobacco companies’ law departments long enough that they could pick up a small fortune. Skippy really wasn’t concerned about how much money Ciresi got as long as he could get big headlines about billions scared out of what they called “Big Tobacco.” They had no problem ignoring the inconvenience to the taxpayers paying for the suit or needing the real attention of the Ramsey County courts and the poor people conscripted to be on the jury, pushed their dubious case. Ciresi knew the contingency business and must have liked his chances and Skippy likely was figuring that it was now or never for his gubernatorial dreams so it was time to take the shot.

When tobacco finally surrendered, Ciresi was allowed to walk away with a very big chunk thanks to a wonderful contract he and Skippy had arranged beforehand which sent money the plaintiff [supposedly us] would receive straight to the Robbins firm instead of to the legislature. Other money was diverted to a state foundation instead of the body our constitution charges with deciding how to spend state assets.

I don’t doubt that this was all done legally and I don’t doubt that this was all done ethically when viewed in the narrow perspective of legal ethics [often a lovely oxymoron]. After all, it was written by smart lawyers, at least on Robbins’ end. But it stunk and it still stinks.

Norm Coleman also worked as a lawyer for the state and he prosecuted some really provable enemies of Minnesota while doing so. But Norm only took his salary, which may have been generous, but was never more than the low six figures, if that high.

When Norm has run for office he has had to do it the old-fashioned way by begging contributors for donations. State service had not given him millions in his own private vaults.

While I think that neither way of funding a campaign is the best, Norm’s is surely the better. It is one that you don’t have to be a lawyer to use.

And between the two of them, there would have been no problem for me in deciding whom to support. And I would like to think that I would have taken the same position, no matter what imaginary enemy Ciresi and Skippy had taken on.

With Franken it will be different.

RS

Ciresi out

Both metro area newspapers and Minnesota Monitor are reporting that Mike Ciresi is dropping out of the Senate race. That means that we will likely not have to choose between trial lawyers in this year’s election.

And it means that Ciresi who, with the help of his friend [at least he ought to be his friend] Skippy [the imitation Hubert Humphrey], found a new way to arrange public financing, will have to stay in his suburban home with a bit less of his public financing in the bank.

This may not be good for Ciresi, but can anybody question that a Franken vs. Norm race ought to be interesting [and likely dirty]?

And we might even see some speeches or ads we cannot all understand since either of both of these guys with their New York backgrounds may well make reference to something we poor Midwesterners cannot understand.