Faris had not, as I recall, been a candidate before the endorsing convention, but joined the race after Franken was endorsed. I just heard one of her ads in a documentary piece on MN Public Radio this week, and basically her concern was that Franken couldn't win because of the ammunition the Republicans had due to his previous writings.

As far as the rest of the article, I agree Coleman is not a strong candidate. I think people here just want to move on and not re-fight these old battles.

Kathy in Minnesota

(After Franken locked up the Democratic nomination at a state convention, he drew a bitter primary challenger who attacked him for his “record of pornography and degradation of women and minorities” and drew 30 percent of the primary vote.)

Senator Franken had no serious primary challenge at all, the challenge was just at an endorsing convention.

Senator Franken had two serious challengers before the endorsing convention, one who dropped before the convention.

Senator Franken called his opponent one of the most gracious people, he had ever known. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer was always talking about vision, values and issues. JNP could never accurately be portrayed as “bitter” and never attacked on anything remotely like “record of pornography and degradation of women and minorities”. Of course, maybe the article is talking about another challenger other than JNP like Soren Sorenson, whose every word was not monitored by even media like us. The DFL (the name of the Democratic party in Minnesota) always has a long list of challengers, most of them are not serious contenders.

The negative attack came from the Republican blogs, from an old article about how Saturday Night Live writing groups brainstormed for generating skits. In brainstorming, alot of inappropriate stuff is generated and thrown away. That was part of the point of the article.

JNP had 39% not 30%, I was there!

Thus we have the perfect example of Republican lying and myth making!