POLL: Coleman would easily trump Franken (KSTP)

I thought Minnesota had had enough of Coleman.

to be taken seriously in Minnesota.

Coleman is out of touch with the state. Why the HELL would they give him a second term, especially with such a wide margin?
:wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf:

Most dems I know ENTHUSIASTICALLY vote for Al. He's a big voice for Minnesota.

spin it. I think Al's appeal will be very similar.

doesn't seem too bad IMO... I surely wouldn't count him out

It is also way too early to declare Hillary and Rudy the respective nominees for 2008.
I expected Coleman to be ahead, but by 22% is just too much. What gives?

n/t

Coleman can be polished even if canned. ? . I think Franken's humor will carry the day. The game has just begun. Franken need establish himself as a regular guy, not a Hollywood type.

35% with an announcement less than a week ago? Pretty good for a comedian.

Al would be a great Senator, and I feel that it would be the most entertaining press conferences and Senate debates ever.

And Al can be serious, and he would be. He is serious about this job.

I predict that as he campaigns, debates and speaks, people will notice his depth, and the concerns about his past careers will melt away just as they have for failed baseball execs, former actors and peanut farmers.

Minnesota is a blue place. Al is one of their own. I lived in Wyzata for a few years, and it is a liberal, open minded place. Coleman doesn't strike me in any way as Minnesotan. He is a pandering fear monger more at home in the Southeast.

Franken is gonna clean his clock.

and I believe you're correct that opinions about Franken will change as voters begin to see him as more than just a comedian. He has an uphill effort, to be sure, but its not unreasonable to expect he'll convince people soon enough. I expect to see these numbers close to reversed this time next year.

have nothing on him. If idiot Bush can be president, a smart comedian can cerainly be a senator.

Have you seen his announcement video - Excellent!

http://www.alfranken.com/page/content/videoMessage

Coleman cannot put enough distance between himself and Bush**.
Even if he spent an hour a day in a Jeramiad repeating Mike Malloy's mantra over and over again,
I think the elephant party is over.

If we get out a strong, progressive message, and stay on message, the right has cheney'd itself for a decade or two, best case scenario.

The mayor of St. Paul is Chris Coleman (a DFLer and no relation to the weasel) and the mayor's brother is Nick Coleman, a columnist for the Star Tribune. AND their dad was Nick Coleman, Sr. who was once the DFL Majority Leader in the State Senate. When Normie was getting his start people often thought he was a member of the other Coleman family and, I have heard, the weasel never did much to correct that assumption.

not particularly conscientious?

Maybe there's something within the public no one has recognized, concerning perception of people with careers in entertainment. Maybe they see stupid people who do stupid movies, like Reagan and Schwarzenegger as being stronger, more steadfast, etc., and are secretly suspicious of people who think quickly, and are very good with words.

I never would have expected this poll result, so that's my first guess, looking for a reason.

He's in fine shape.

IF the election were held tomorrow...

freaking stupid.

He can't run from his voting record. Franken is honest and owns his mistakes. Coleman is dishonest and hides from his failures. Honesty and Accountability are tough to beat when you don't have either.

You know how conservative Stanley Hubbard is - he was probably the only one polled.

the only two things this poll speaks to is name recognition and the power of incumbency. If we still have troops fighting and dying in Iraq, Nov. 2008, Coleman will be in trouble.

I still don't get how the people who voted for Wellstone could now be voting for Coleman. :wtf:

It was very emotional and they made it political. Pure evil.

"To this day, there are still a lot of people, including Democrats, who've bought the right wing line on the Wellstone Memorial.

Specifically, that it was a cynical, premeditated political event that included endless booing of Republican politicians who came to pay their respects to their fallen colleague. I wrote a pretty detailed account of the Wellstone Memorial in my book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and nothing could be further from the truth. I did write that "reasonable people of good will were genuinely offended." The memorial was raucous and a couple of speakers said some things that were inappropriate - basically, let's win this (upcoming Senate) election for Paul.

There were also honest Republicans of good will, including Jim Ramstad - the Congressman from the Minneapolis suburban district I grew up in - who acted like human beings and cut the speakers who offended (Rick Kahn and, to a lesser degree, Mark Wellstone) a little slack because they understood that Rick had lost six very close friends and Mark had lost his father, mother, and sister.

The chapter was mainly about how cynically Republicans used the memorial politically as they complained that the Democrats had used it politically. And how the mainstream media, many of whom had neither attended the memorial nor seen it on TV, bought into the Republican spin. "


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-franken/reflections-on-the-wellst_b_15459.html

"In the midst of a fierce political battle, Wellstone was struck down. Apolitical mourning would have been shrewder politically, but that might not have been Wellstone’s style. One could easily envision Wellstone telling his grieving friends, “don’t mourn, organize.” Reminiscent of this Wellstone, Rick Kahn’s speech at the Memorial Service was strongly confrontational. So were the speeches of Wellstone’s sons, David and Mark. Fueled by intense grief, the tributes were doubtless intended to honor a man who often disparaged traditional political wisdom.

A Wellstonian ending would have been a narrow Mondale victory despite the political mishaps of the Memorial. But instead of a tale of tragedy and triumph, Wellstone’s followers suffered defeat amidst death. After the election, Walter Mondale said that your principles are tested more in defeat than in victory. For the followers of Paul Wellstone, the days and years of testing lie ahead."

http://www.collegenews.org/x2886.xml

the wresting match Al challenges Normie to, and then we'll see.

go get 'em Al!

dp

The Twin Cities and Iron Range are blue but much of the rest of the state is red. Notice that there is a Republican governor who just got RE-elected, and Coleman did win the first time around. It is only wishful thinking to underestimate Coleman's chances. He is a slimeball, but a very slick slimeball. I used to live in Minnesota, and I have seen this guy in action first hand. He makes me sick. While I love Franken, I feel the Dems need to be careful to select a candidate who has the best chance to defeat Coleman. If that turns out to be Franken, so much the better.

As to the Ventura references, Ventura appealed to a lot of people who call themselves independents, and largely libertarian in philosophy. Ventura was socially liberal in some ways, but to compare him to Franken is a bit wierd. Plus which, a lot of folks in Minnesota have a dim view of Ventura, so it is not necessarily a good association for Franken. Just seems odd.

We al know he's no Wellstonian democrat... but is he pure DLC? Sure seemed open to repugs at times on the radio show.

no pr yet, no debates yet...and that 66% dems things is off. after the sweeping change just a few months ago the pollsters expect us to believe that democrats would rather vote for a "bush" republican over a dem. puhlease. don't buy the corporate media BS.

He's a NY Times bestselling author, but I guess that means nothing to the GOP-controlled media. :mad:

this poll doesn't surprise me. Unfortunately Franken lacks gravitas. While he has an excellent command of the issues of the day, he still comes across as the class clown. Franken's assignment is to develop his image into one of a credible thinker with a vision of what should be. Compare Franken to Al Gore as he appears in "An Inconvenient Truth". That type of confidence and delivery is what Franken needs to work on. I'm not saying Franken needs to become Al Gore (so please don't suggest that!). I'm saying he should use Gore as a model to develop his public image. Franken is right on all the issues. He needs to be perceived as a credible candidate. He has plenty of time to do this.

While I'm not sure Franken would be the best candidate, we have to remember that it is more than a year before the election and that this poll is not worth much. Remember, here in Virginia, Webb was down by 20 points until late summer. Anything can happen.

But they will! 8^)

>>>The poll also looked at a possible matchup between Coleman and attorney Mike Ciresi, who is also expected to seek the DFL nomination. Coleman also wins that match by a margin of 57 to 34.>>>>

... dem frontrunner/conventional pol in a head to head with Coleman.

I'd say that's ok at this early stage. Franken will generate interest and attention.


He'll articulate things that need to be articulated and do it better than almost anyone can.

And honestly, I could see where Franken would have troubles. He has said a lot of things that, while true, are very harsh and wouldn't be accepted in politics (face it, comedians aren't always the most diplomatic, and Franken almost never is). His constant use of the F word, while not important to most people on DU is simply not acceptable for large swaths of the public, even many Dems.

I always thought he did himself a disservice by using constant swear words in his book "Lying liers and the lies they tell." I knew several people with proclivities against Bush that could have been easily tweaked who simply wouldn't read the book once they realized how much "vulgarity" was in the book.

Again, I think for most folks on DU this is a non-issue. But for many folks, even people sympathetic to our causes, it still is.

I'm afraid that unless Democrats emphasize their populism, there will be too many one issue voters (the war.) Emphasizing social issues over populism is the wrong strategy, especially when your stands on social issues are a bit tame to begin with. If Franken runs on a populist stance, advocates withdrawal, and exposes Coleman's pro-Bush record, I still think he'll win.

If he runs a good, disciplind campaign, Franken can win. Besides that, the environment will probably be even more anti-GOP than it is now.

It's not as though the election is being held next week. Besides, beating Coleman is as easy as playing George Galloway's speech!

:headbang:
rocknation

Ventura got in because both the other candidates (Moe, and ironically Coleman) were *terrible*. I remember *begging* my fellow DFLers not to nominate the horrible Moe...but there we go.

The reason TPaw (my name for the current Governor Pawlenty) got in again was yet another *terrible* candidate in Mike Hatch. Tpaw is smooth and likable, Hatch (whom I liked on the issues) was abrasive and made many missteps.

It's also how the folks in the 6th sent that complete nutcase Michelle Bachmann to Congress this year. The DFL ran Patty Wetterling, who is famous because her son was abducted. She's a nice lady and everything, but again while Bachmann was smooth and likable, Wetterling was clueless and appeared stupid.

That said, Norm is an idiot and has a record of Bush lapdog-ism which will be hard to escape.

I listened to Al's show on Air America. He does have gravitas, and he can be serious. Hopefully, the folks at the caucus won't send another loser to an election when they could have sent a potential winner.