Will Al Franken Run Again in the Special Election in 2018

U.s. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) prior to announcing his resignation while addressing allegations of sexual misconduct on December vii, 2017.

Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The still-raging controversy over Al Franken's resignation, explained

Progressive men won't stop emailing me virtually it.

By May 21, 2018, half dozen:20am EDT

Many progressive men didn't see the fall of Al Franken over sexual misconduct allegations equally the loss of a Democratic senator. It was the loss of a progressive icon. And they oasis't moved on.

I know this considering they still e-mail me about it.

"As a leaning progressive, I don't see the rationale for lumping together these 2 men," a man wrote to me this weekend, referring to a sentence where I put Harvey Weinstein's name near Franken's in a short item on Eric Schneiderman. "Ultimately, the risk is an excess of political definiteness and perceived rigidity. Are you getting pushback? I'grand open up to hereafter manufactures on this bespeak of view."

U.s. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) speaks outside his office on Capitol Loma as he faced pressure level to footstep down amid charges of sexual harassment on November 27, 2017.

Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

In recent months, I've written about the intersection of gender and power, sporadically mentioning Franken. Passing lines have inspired men to e-mail me since December when Franken announced his resignation. Some of the emails are angry rockets, attacking me personally. Merely most are more than like the one from this weekend, written politely by genuinely confused and frustrated readers. They don't get why Franken is out of a job when, say, Donald Trump isn't, or why I include Franken in stories about powerful men who've been accused of monstrous beliefs.

The reason liberals are stuck on Franken is because in that location's a large unanswered question in the #MeToo era: What should happen to powerful men who are publicly and credibly defendant of misconduct?

On a meta level, liberals have embraced #MeToo as an extension of their ain commitment to women'due south equality. Merely practically, when the defendant is one of their own, many liberals feel turning on him unfairly holds Democrats to a higher standard than Republicans. Democrats will demand to resolve this dilemma to motion forwards on Franken and cases similar his.

Franken'south fall was a psychic blow to liberals

The former SNL comic wrote best-sellers during the George W. Bush years, similar Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them — the kind of scarlet meat (arugula?) the progressive base was eager to devour in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq and the conservative "war on science." When Franken arrived in the Senate in 2009, he became an instant Hill celebrity, drawing attending in hearings for his abrupt questioning and for his prowess on TV, a liberal answer to the right'south dominance on cable news.

Then last autumn, a radio personality, Leeann Tweeden, released an 11-year-onetime photograph of Franken smiling with his hands over her breasts every bit she slept wearing a flak jacket on a flight home from a USO bout in Afghanistan. Seven more women accused Franken of strikingly similar, and disturbing, comport. They described specific, detailed incidents in which he put his hands on their behinds or breasts during photos. Others recalled him trying to forcibly kiss them.

Franken apologized repeatedly but said he wasn't certain if he'd done the things he was sad might have happened. "I take thousands and thousands of pictures, sometimes in chaotic and crowded situations," he said. "I can't say I haven't done that. I'm very sorry if these women experienced that."

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called on him to resign from the Senate, and a stream of other senators joined her; he soon agreed to bow out.

For almost of America, the story ended there. The news cycle moved on to a million other things. But for a set of liberals — including former Franken aides and backers, big liberal donors, remorseful senators, and some befuddled progressives who withal email me about information technology — the example is still a alive issue.

Booting Franken was good politics for Democrats

At the exact moment the Franken story bankrupt, a Democrat in an Alabama Senate special ballot, Doug Jones, looked like he might win. The Republican candidate in the race, Roy Moore, was accused of sexually abusing, assaulting, or attempting to pick up teens when he was an developed. Moore was fifty-fifty banned from the local mall at one point.

President Trump endorsed Moore, and Colina Republicans were reluctant to denounce him. It was the perfect moment for Democrats — particularly Gillibrand — to strike.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) depart a news briefing where members of Congress introduced legislation to adjourn sexual harassment in the workplace on December 6, 2017. Gillibrand and fellow female Democratic senators have united in calling for Sen. Al Franken to resign among sexual misconduct allegations.

Andrew Harnik/AP

Franken, a beloved Democrat and popular media figure, was accused of behavior arguably less bad than Moore's. (There'southward not much worse than accusations of kid molestation.) If Democrats booted Franken, information technology would depict a clear distinction between Democrats, who said information technology was bad that Moore preyed on teen girls, and Republicans, who wouldn't denounce him.

At beginning glance, it looked like Democrats were taking a dauntless stance. They were turning on a popular figure in their own party and losing an constructive media surrogate. But in reality, even if Franken stuck around, he'd never exist the same. He'd been tainted by scandal and wouldn't be a commanding liberal vocalization for the party on Telly. If he resigned, he was sure to exist replaced past a Democrat in Minnesota who'd vote exactly the same. The cost to the party would exist minimal.

It worked. Franken left. Jones won.

For one faction, this was a big victory: Democrats picked upward a Senate seat, got rid of a potentially damaging figure, and paid piddling for it. But for another, this was a instance where politics trumped basic fairness. To them, Franken was a sacrificial lamb.

Franken didn't get his solar day in front of the Ethics Committee

When Franken admitted the Tweeden photo was real, he apologized and called for an ethics investigation into his own behavior. When other women came forward with similar accounts of being groped during a photograph, he apologized repeatedly but couldn't seem to remember whether he did the thing the woman claimed.

Since the matter wasn't settled, progressives argue, Franken deserved a full investigation earlier Democrats determined his fate. The Ethics Committee started an initial inquiry, but they never completed their work because Franken agreed to leave before they could.

In hindsight, a set up of Democrats felt hustled. Gillibrand, who led the charge against Franken, is widely assumed to be setting up a run for the presidency in 2020. She forced her colleagues' hands in a deft public maneuver that made it difficult for them non to go along with her. Some Democrats take since proper name-checked her with a tinge of resentment. Other liberals openly called her the blazon of names ambitious women who want to run for president get called. Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast compared her to the Queen of Hearts, Lewis Carroll'south unhinged monarch who screams, "Off with their heads!"

Even a number of senators who pressured Franken to get out have regrets. Mayhap they were too hasty. "I remember we acted prematurely, before we had all the facts," an bearding senator told Politico. "In retrospect, I recall we acted too fast."

Al Franken after he resigned from the US Senate on December vii, 2017.

Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Sen. Joe Manchin went further: "What they did to Al was atrocious, the Democrats," the West Virginia Democrat said on a Politician podcast.

This argument is widespread across progressive politics.

Ruby Cramer of BuzzFeed reported that a major Democratic donor, Susie Tompkins Buell, said she was rethinking whether to donate to senators who supported outing Franken for the same reason:

In 2 interviews this week, Buell described the push for Franken's difference as "unfair," "cavalier," and somewhat politically motivated — "a stampede," "like a binge," she said, speaking in stark terms virtually senators she has backed for years, naming Gillibrand in particular.

"They need to know that some of their biggest supporters are questioning why they did that," Buell said. "We have to exercise things conscientiously and fairly. He didn't have the run a risk to defend himself."

In i of the many supportive postings on Franken's Facebook page, one commenter wrote: "I hope you don't retire from politics, Al Franken. There was no due process when y'all left. I idea it was premature."

Other prominent supporters made the same point, including Franken'southward longtime friend Norm Ornstein, an institution figure in Washington at the bourgeois American Enterprise Plant think tank.

Franken Standard: no ethics procedure, same punishment for actions taken before coming to the Senate, w/o coercive action of employer harassing or assaulting staff or interns, all behavior treated aforementioned as series assault. No deliberation, calibration. You lot might be glad. I am non. https://t.co/WDu9HkSfT8

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) December vii, 2017

Franken gave an indignant farewell oral communication on the floor of the Senate in December.

"I have earned a reputation as someone who respects the women I work aslope every day," he said, soon later a former Autonomous Senate aide defendant him of trying to kiss her after his radio testify in 2006. "I know in that location has been a very dissimilar picture of me painted over the last few weeks, but I know who I really am."

A Facebook commenter agreed: "I am still incredibly bitter that you were forced to resign. You were/are one of the good guys."

The "correct-fly" conspiracy theory

There's likewise a conspiracy theory lurking in the background that doesn't add up to much, but nevertheless adds fuel to the Franken burn. Franken was set upward, the believers say, starting with the flak jacket photo, which was a hoax orchestrated past a Trump supporter.

A tweet went viral claiming that a lensman said Tweeden had asked him to take a staged photo while she pretended to be asleep and Franken posed. But when the Twitter user was pushed for the source, he came upwardly with nil.

Others claimed Republican trickster Roger Rock coached Tweeden. There was no footing for this, either.

I'm disappointed with my friend Leeann Tweedon. Her partner at KABC John Phillips is a Roger Stone pal & they coached her for weeks to bring Al Franken down. I'd hoped she'd use her voice to speak out for all women again predators like Roy Moore & Donald Trump but she's a birther

— Tom Arnold (@TomArnold) December 7, 2017

Franken hasn't endorsed any of this. He actually apologized to Tweeden: "I don't know what was in my caput when I took that pic, and it doesn't matter. There's no excuse. I wait at it now and I feel disgusted with myself. It isn't funny. It'south completely inappropriate. Information technology'south obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture."

Even more than of import, this theory doesn't address the claims of the vii other women.

Yes, what Franken is defendant of is "that bad"

Most of the emails I receive nearly Franken are written earnestly, only they've got a sort of creepy quality yet. The premise is basically that Franken's behavior wasn't that bad.

Allow me brand this articulate: It is that bad. The same impulse that drives the men outed in the #MeToo era drives the kind of behavior women described in their Franken accounts. These stories are about a homo using his power to belittle, humiliate, or take advantage of a woman who can't exercise much nigh it. It's fell. And it's dissentious.

A swath of liberals tried (and yet try) to downplay the incidents to defend their guy. The word "boorish" comes up, a give-and-take that's surfaced in other defenses of men accused of misconduct. Information technology's the #MeToo era version of "boys will exist boys," the age-one-time line condoning men treating women badly.

Jonathan Modify, a liberal author and commentator, relied on information technology in his defense force of Franken:

Democrats will rue the day they demanded @alfranken resign. They've given into the conflation of crimes (Weinstein, Moore) and power abuse (bosses) with boorishness. It won't get more women voters and will lose more anti- PC men. Sucker'due south game.

— Jonathan Alter (@jonathanalter) December 7, 2017

Journalists besides picked upward the description, including Sacramento Bee editorial author Ginger Rutland, who wrote:

At near Franken, who appear Th he is resigning, is guilty of boorish beliefs — not attack, not pedophilia, not fifty-fifty sexual harassment. Only with today'due south fast-changing, contradictory and confusing reversal of sexual norms, he's beingness burned at the pale, walked down the plank, cached alive. Information technology'south unfair.

This isn't beliefs we should have. For instance, a former Democratic aide told Politico a story (that she had told others over the years): She met Franken in 2006 when her dominate appeared on his Air America radio prove. After, he attempted to kiss her. When she rebuffed his advance, she says, he claimed "information technology'due south my right as an entertainer." She got the message: He was important. She was not.

"He was between me and the door, and he was coming at me to kiss me. It was very quick, and I call up my encephalon had to work actually hard to be like 'Wait, what is happening?' But I knew whatever was happening was non correct, and I ducked," the erstwhile aide said in an interview. "I was really startled by it, and I just sort of booked it towards the door, and he said, 'It'due south my right equally an entertainer.'"

An Army veteran serving in the Middle E during the Iraq State of war recounted her experience to CNN. When she was a 27-year-old military machine law officer and Franken was on a USO tour, she says that Franken put his arm around her for a photo and then cupped her breast in his hand. She was stunned. He was there to lift her spirits; instead, she describes being pushed down, fabricated to feel helpless.

"I was in a state of war zone. ... You were on a USO bout — are you trying to boost the morale of the troops or are yous trying to boost your own?" she said. "I but experience and then sad for that young girl in that motion-picture show."

[Stephanie] Kemplin said she did not say anything to Franken at the fourth dimension.

"You're immediately put on the spot. What are you going to exercise? What are you going to do? Your mind goes a mile a minute," she said. "Who was I going to tell?"

Many women have experienced this kind of behavior once again and again — the small caresses on the arm or shoulder, a mitt that slides a little too depression followed by a startling squeeze, the paw in the wrong place during a photo, a lunge for an unwanted osculation. Women pay a tax for participating in public life. Maybe the revenue enhancement isn't ever crippling, simply it is too extreme to say it is meaningless. As one of Franken'due south supporters put it afterwards she says he tried to kiss her on a campaign stage, "I was stunned and incredulous. I felt demeaned. I felt put in my place."

In that location is a difference between the actions of Harvey Weinstein (accused of rape) and Franken (defendant of forced kissing and groping women). Only that doesn't mean women should take to choose between the two. The ideal is none of the in a higher place.

Democrats need their ain moment of reckoning

Liberals stuck on Franken think Democrats are holding the party to a higher standard than Republicans, who go to deny, to lie, and to tolerate abusive behavior in their ranks. Or and so the thinking goes.

But to take a moral stand against Donald Trump or decry Roy Moore while tolerating rot in their ain ranks is hypocrisy. History will notice.

The goal of #MeToo is to change our culture, even our earth. Its success won't exist measured moment by moment, in who won the twenty-four hours's headlines or even who won the 2018 midterm elections. It will be in whether politicians enshrine the cause, changing policy and making life better for women.

Democrats have to brand a choice. They can encounter this every bit a transformational moment, 1 that presents an opportunity to make good on their own foundational values. They tin can accept that it's okay, even necessary, to bury one of their own if the cause is simply. Or they can think small, protect their ain, and have the status quo.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/2018/5/21/17352230/al-franken-accusations-resignation-democrats-leann-tweeden-kirsten-gillibrand

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