Friday, October 19, 2007

Ben Stein Has Some Explaining to Do

I have tremendous respect for Ben Stein -- the conservative actor/economist son of Herb Stein, and former columnist for the American Spectator. But whatever Norm Coleman may say, this is inexcusable:

Liberal Al Franken is good enough and smart enough to win some of conservative Ben Stein's money -- and doggone it, Stein likes him.

Stein, an actor, writer, economist and former Nixon speechwriter, has contributed $2,000 to Franken's U.S. Senate campaign. The two men have known each other for about 30 years...

"Friendship trumps ideology, by the way, as it should," said U.S. Sen Norm Coleman, whom Franken hopes to unseat in 2008. "Was he in 'Ferris Bueller'? I think it was a good movie. I don't get a lot of Ben Stein."

Then again, maybe Stein is playing the game a step ahead of everyone else:

Republican Senator Norm Coleman sports 45% job approval rating. He also has a +17 net favorable/unfavorable rating (52/35), while his possible opponent, comedian Al Franken, has a -7 net fav/unfav rating (27/34). Attorney Mike Ciresi, Franken's challenger in the DFL primary, scored a +5 net fav/unfav rating (20/15) with a majority (51%) saying they did not know enough about him to have an opinion.

There certainly is a strong body of opinion that Ciresi would be a superior candidate to Franken. Perhaps Stein is trying to set Coleman up with an easy opponent.

Yeah... that's the ticket.

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