Oct 21, 2008 9:06 pm US/Central
Clinton Urges Minn. Democrats To Vote Franken
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ―
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n a campaign appearance Tuesday at the University of Minnesota, Clinton says Democrats must vote for U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken in order to help the party achieve the 60 Senate seats needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.
CBS
Simply electing Barack Obama president is not enough to end the Bush era, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told a group of Minnesota Democrats Tuesday.
Clinton urged the crowd of about 2,000 at the University of Minnesota to also elect Democrats, including Al Franken, to the U.S. Senate in order to help the party achieve the 60 seats it needs to overcome a Republican filibuster.
"You have friends who've decided to vote for Obama/Biden but haven't yet decided who to vote for in the Senate race," Clinton said, urging the crowd to spread the message in the two weeks remaining before the election. "How are they going to feel if they vote for Barack Obama but don't get that majority we need in the Senate?"
Clinton said 60 votes in the Senate would allow Democrats to pass universal health care, make investments in creating manufacturing jobs, cut tax breaks for oil and pharmaceutical companies and pass an energy plan that creates "green jobs."
In recent days, Franken's Republican opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman, has also started telling voters that if he loses that would likely mean Democrats get to 60 votes in the Senate. Coleman, needless to say, wants voters to view that as a bad thing.
"I think Minnesotans have to decide if that's what they want," Coleman said earlier this week on a campaign swing through southwestern Minnesota. "That's one of the stakes in the election, and I think it's fair to raise it."
Clinton and Franken, the former "Saturday Night Live" comedian and author, spoke warmly of each other at the University of Minnesota rally; Franken said the two first met shortly after Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992. Clinton praised Franken, author of books including "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot," for "taking on the vast right-wing conspiracy before a lot of people admitted it existed" -- a reference to her own late-'90s term for a network of conservative activists and commentators that she felt persecuted her husband.
"He never sank to their level of those attacking him, but he shed light on their tactics," Clinton said of Franken.
Franken suggested that increasing the number of Democrats in Washington could lead to a return to Clinton-era prosperity.
"You remember the Clinton presidency?" Franken asked. "Inheriting the largest deficit in history and passing on the largest surplus? Twenty-three million new jobs? Remember that?"
"Vaguely," shouted a man in the crowd.
"I'll do the jokes, sir," Franken replied, to laughter from the audience.
After the Minneapolis appearance, Clinton was flying north to the Iron Range where she was headlining an evening rally in support of Obama.
Coleman is scheduled to get help later in the week from his own heavyweight New York politician. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani is appearing at a rally with Coleman on Thursday in Bloomington, and will join him on the campaign trail Friday in Mankato, Owatonna and Rochester.
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Norm Coleman was born in New York City in 1949. Al Franken was born in New York City in 1951.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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