Political Notebook

Dark Knight + "bedtime stories in Hell" = Al Franken?

OK, Stolle is not around, but I'll (Jeff Kiger) step up and put this oddity out there.

Chatter about The Dark Knight Batman movie and Heath Ledger's creepy performance as The Joker as buzzing across the U.S.

One reviewer in San Francisco actually tied (loosely) the insane Joker performance to Minnesota politics. I, for one, did not see that one coming.

Here's the pertinent passage from SF Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle's review:

With his smeared lipstick and painted white face, he is every clown who ever terrified a child. He speaks in a measured, Middle American accent, enunciating his words carefully, a voice that could tell bedtime stories in hell. (He seems, actually, to be imitating Al Franken.)

Hhmm… It is hard to know how to respond to that.

I need to tip the hat to Steve Perry and the Minnesota Independent for discovering this.

Carleton College professor describes Franken's challenge

Democrats arrive in Rochester today to hold their state convention. Al Franken, the odds-on favorite to secure his party's endorsement, has endured several weeks of negative media coverage, including stories about unpaid taxes as well as extensive coverage of a pornographic column he penned for Playboy in 2000.
Steven Schier, a political science professor for Carleton College, recently described the challenge Franken faces as he seeks his party endorsment:
"I think the basic point to make about Franken is this: When you are the challenger in the U.S. Senate race, the spotlight has to be consistently on the incumbent. You have to be sure that the incumbent's record and the incumbent's statements are getting critical scrutiny and a lot of public attention, because you have to make the incumbent the issue in order to make the incumbent unacceptable to voters," He said.
He added: "What's been happening over the last month or so is that the challenger has been the issue. He's been in the spotlight. Norm Coleman is able to sit on $12 million dollars, now he doesn't have to advertise, he doesn't have to explain himself. And that is exactly the opposite of what the DFL had hoped for."