Mother Jones: Al Franken Was Liberal Enough, Tough Enough, and Doggone It, People Reelected Him [View all]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/al-franken-minnesota-senate-model-progressive-campaign?google_editors_picks=true

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One evening a few days before the midterm elections, Sen. Al Franken stood on a low raised platform at the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party's St. Paul headquarters, addressing a few dozen loyal supporters. Chris Coleman, St. Paul's mayor, had introduced the freshman senator by telling the crowd that Franken had fulfilled the legacy of the late progressive icon Paul Wellstone, whose Senate seat Franken now holds. "Thank you for saying I've been your Paul," Franken replied solemnly. "There's no higher compliment." Then he dove into a Wellstone-esque speech selling progressive policy ideas in simple, everyman terms, spelling out exactly how he'd raise taxes on Minnesota millionaires to help students refinance their loans. "We up here believe that the economy—and not just our economy, but our community and our state—it works from the middle up," he said. The speech exemplified how Franken campaigned—and why he won.
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Cross-Posted in Politics 2014