Al sat down with the Fairmont Sentinel on his “Standing Up for Minnesota” tour a few weeks ago, and the conversation ranged from the high turnout at this year’s DFL caucuses to renewable energy to the deficit. It’s a great article and not available online, but here are a couple highlights.

“I want to be a senator for the people of Minnesota,” he said. “And I think we haven’t had one in Norm Coleman. There’s a new progressive feeling in this state. You saw it on caucus day when 215,000 people showed up to the DFL caucus, not all of them necessarily Democrats. … Because they want a change. And part of the change they want is someone to go to Washington and tell the special interests they aren’t so special anymore. We need somebody who will work for common-sense solutions and invest in our future.”

Franken believes he is that somebody.

“I don’t claim to be a perfect person and I don’t pretend that I know all the answers, but I do know that I will work for the people of Minnesota,” he said. “That I know. And I’m gonna conduct a campaign that Democrats and Republicans and Independents and everyone else can be proud of. I’ll be a senator that they can all be proud of.”

He said Minnesotans want a number of things, including universal health care.

…

Franken said he would like to come back to Fairmont and speak with citizens. Though the area is known for voting conservative, that doesn’t deter him.

“I also want people that are conservative to know about me,” he said. “In an odd way I think the Democratic party has become both the liberal and the conservative party in this country.”

He said there is nothing conservative about running $250 billion to 400 billion deficits year after year, by going to war by misleading the country, or by outing CIA agents.

“I’m a pretty conservative guy in my lifestyle,” he said. “I’ve been married for 32 years to my college sweetheart in my freshman year. We’re very proud of our kids. They’re very accomplished young adults.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 2:55 pm and is filed under News Clips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.