Al Franken Is Leading in the Nastiest, Most Expensive Senate Race in the Country

In the early days of his campaign to oust incumbent Republican senator Norm Coleman, Al Franken answered charges of carpetbagging by joking that he was the only New York Jew in the race who actually grew up in Minnesota. He retired the line last summer, but the Franken campaign has lately revived its spirit by emphasizing the fact that the candidate didn't just grow up in Minnesota, but in middle-class Minnesota. Less than two weeks before Election Day, the debate in the Land of a Thousand Lakes is right where Franken wants it, at the kitchen table, focused on the issues he has been running on from the start: falling wages, rising tuition, health care, jobs. As it has for Democrats across the country, recent turmoil in the financial markets has heightened receptivity to Franken's broad progressive agenda. It is an opportunity that the Franken campaign and its army of 80,000 volunteers intend to seize in the final days of the bloodiest, costliest senate race this cycle.

"It's all about the economy right now in Minnesota, and Norm Coleman is irrevocably tied to Bush's economic policies," says Franken's spokesperson, Andy Barr. "We're the ones offering change and ideas. Al Franken is the only candidate in the country proposing a $5,000 tax credit for post-secondary education. Struggling families need that kind of help more than ever. As they say, we're fired up and ready to go."

The latest polls show Franken with a composite poll position lead of between 2 and 3 points, which he has held since the beginning of October -- his first sustained lead of the race. Whichever candidate proves the better stretch runner, the barrage from the other side will continue through until Election Day. Franken and Coleman together raised more than $7 million in the period ending Sept. 30, with Franken pulling in more than $4.4 million. The two campaigns will go out in a blaze of last-minute ads, an appropriate finale to the most expensive campaign in Minnesota history. Altogether, the candidates have raised $34 million between them ($18 million for Coleman; $16 million for Franken.)

But all that money isn't just sowing doubt about the other guy. A good chunk of Minnesotans turned off by the negative ads and the mudslinging now have doubts about both guys and have turned to Independent Party candidate Dean Barkley. A former lawyer and current bus driver, Barkley briefly occupied Paul Wellstone's Senate seat after the Democratic senator was killed in a plane crash in October 2002. Barkley is currently polling at 18 percent, but despite his firm opposition to the Iraq War and his general appeal with Democrats (he was once approached by state Dems about challenging Michele Bachmann's 6th District seat), polls indicate that Barkley is sucking more votes away from Coleman than from Franken. There are also indications that this is his intent. In the last debate between the three men, Barkley unleashed his most ferocious attacks on Coleman. At a recent American Legion Club luncheon with press, Barkley gleefully admitted that he was gaining ground at the expense of the Republican, making the oddly Marxist-sounding boast that he has "demystified Norm Coleman for the people of Minnesota."

But if Franken is being helped by Barkley's candidacy, Coleman shouldn't look too far away from the mirror when contemplating how he fell behind in the polls. Unable to run on his record of Bush cheerleading (Coleman voted with the president 86 percent of the time), the first-term Republican early turned the campaign into one designed to offend the sensibilities of "Minnesota Nice." Speaking to Minnesota Public Radio, Barkley spoke for many when he described the campaign as "disgusting -- the most negative in history."

Earlier this month, surveys showed that the public overwhelmingly blamed Coleman for the nasty tone of the campaign, with a majority considering his ads to be "mostly unfair personal attacks." The Republican promptly held a press conference to declare he was taking his negative ads off the air, a smart if belated decision. The last of Coleman's negative ads in particular put a sting in the backlash against him. It attempted to call Franken's temperament into question with video of the Democrat ranting and raving. It turned out the footage captured Franken dramatizing a humorous story that involved his dead friend and Minnesota icon Wellstone. Oops.