{"id":13779,"date":"2016-03-29T01:41:44","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T01:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13779"},"modified":"2016-03-29T01:41:44","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T01:41:44","slug":"al-franken-for-vp-lets-think-about-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13779","title":{"rendered":"Al Franken for VP? Let&#8217;s think about this"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/franken.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13780\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13780\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/franken-300x163.jpg\" alt=\"franken\" width=\"300\" height=\"163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/franken-300x163.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/franken-768x416.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/franken-1024x555.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/franken.jpg 1160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Al Franken for vice president?<\/p>\n<p>Oh boy. It&#8217;s almost too hilarious to consider. Then again, so was Donald J. Trump&#8217;s presidential candidacy once thought of as a side-splitting joke.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Scher, writing for Politico, thinks the political dynamics have been thrown into the drink with Trump&#8217;s frontrunning GOP presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p>So, according to Scher, Hillary Clinton needs to think seriously about appointing the man who gained fame as Stuart Smalley, the &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; character who turned melodramatic modesty into an art form.<\/p>\n<p>Franken now has a serious job, as a U.S. senator from Minnesota.<\/p>\n<p>His committee hearing questioning of witnesses can be hilarious. He also makes serious points.<\/p>\n<p>Franken is an unapologetic populist. He&#8217;s also backing Clinton, rather than Sen. Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/magazine\/story\/2016\/03\/2016-elections-al-franken-vice-president-213756\">Scher&#8217;s point<\/a> in pushing Franken out front as a potential VP nominee is that Trump has changed the political calculus at every level. Franken would be seen as every bit as serious as Trump &#8230; which isn&#8217;t saying much, given that Trump&#8217;s circus act has turned the GOP campaign into a markedly unserious endeavor.<\/p>\n<p>I am not in favor of promoting candidates for high public office for the sake of doing something brash and unthinkable. I like Sen. Franken. He&#8217;s a solid family man and a damn funny comedian. He writes great jokes, which he did for many years before becoming an on-camera sensation with &#8220;SNL.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The question keeps popping into my head: Is Al &#8220;Stuart Smalley&#8221; Franken ready to become president if he is forced to assume that office?<\/p>\n<p>My heart wants to say &#8220;yes.&#8221; My head says &#8220;no.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As for Donald J. Trump, every fiber of my being tells me he is unsuited at every level imaginable for the office he is seeking.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Al Franken for vice president? Oh boy. It&#8217;s almost too hilarious to consider. Then again, so was Donald J. Trump&#8217;s presidential candidacy once thought of as a side-splitting joke. Bill Scher, writing for Politico, thinks the political dynamics have been thrown into the drink with Trump&#8217;s frontrunning GOP presidential campaign. So, according to Scher, Hillary &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13779\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Al Franken for VP? Let&#8217;s think about this<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[216,1424,1941,2139,4294,4440],"class_list":["post-13779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-al-franken","tag-donald-trump","tag-gop","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-snl","tag-stuart-smalley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13781,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13779\/revisions\/13781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}