It is often said these days that the trouble with the Democrats is that they lack a “bench.” This is usually said to be because Bill and Hillary Clinton allegedly “sucked all the oxygen out of the room.” And there’s something to that explanation. The TV talk shows seem to have an endless supply of Republican governors, lieutenant governors, statehouse speakers, and the like. They are happy to spout the party line as soon as they’re told what it is.
Whereas the Democrats have . . . who? By the time of the 2020 election, Hillary will be too old, sadly, both as a person and as an idea. How many of the more recent Democratic senators can you even name? Well, there’s Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, and Cory Booker, of New Jersey, maybe. Either one of them would do fine. And as for governors: Are there any Democratic governors besides Jerry Brown (who’s 78) and Andrew Cuomo? (Who and how many of them am I insulting here?)
But there’s one Democratic senator whom everybody knows and almost everybody likes, irrespective of party, and that’s Al Franken, of Minnesota. Franken is well known, of course, not because of his years in the Senate, but for his years on Saturday Night Live, where he often played a character named Al Franken. The character called Al Franken would occasionally say things that a Senate candidate named Al Franken would not. Nor would the Senate candidate Al Franken necessarily want every word he uttered when brainstorming with other writers on S.N.L. to become public. Franken’s opponent in his first Senate campaign, in 2008, tried to make an issue of all this—thinking, or at least hoping, that the clean-living people of Minnesota might find the whole business a bit postmodern.
It almost worked. Franken had to go through a recount and a state Supreme Court battle before taking his seat several months late. He was comfortably re-elected in 2014.
This is Al Franken’s moment. Four years from now, he’ll be 69, younger than Trump or Hillary during the 2016 campaign. Four years after that, and he’ll be too old. As recently as, say, six months ago, I would have said that, however much I might admire Al Franken, the idea of a comedian (a comedian on purpose) as president was beneath the dignity of the United States. But we have learned more recently that nothing is beneath the dignity of the United States. The Trump dispensation changes the rules and opens up the presidency to all sorts of people who previously would have been thought unqualified. Baseball players, philosophers, plumbers, TV commentators. All it takes is $50 million or so and nothing better to do.
I think it will still be necessary, or at least useful, for the candidate who isn’t just another political hack to have some independent source of fame or respect, as John McCain had his heroism in Vietnam. When Dr. Ben Carson was introduced to the world as a pediatric neurosurgeon—someone who cuts open and repairs children’s brains—I thought, how bad could he be, if that is how he devotes his days on earth. But I found out.
Franken ran for president once before, in 2000. But it was one of those joke campaigns that comedians sometimes indulge in. Now he should do it for real. His politics are exactly what you would expect them to be if I told you only that he was a senator from Minnesota: mildly progressive. He hasn’t tried to be the TV star among his colleagues. You rarely see him on TV at all except in reruns of Saturday Night Live. But if you happen to catch him questioning a witness at a congressional hearing on CSPAN, you’ll see a man who’s done his homework.
Look, maybe he’s a jerk—I don’t know. I’ve met him, but just barely. Maybe he has no interest in running for president (though this is something no politician’s word can be trusted about at this stage in the electoral cycle). Maybe we’d prefer Senator Warren. The point is, the Democrats do have a bench of smart, honest, thoughtful public servants who bear comparison to Mike Pence any day.
VIDEO: Donald Trump vs. the Wind
