Al Franken “intends to resign” in coming weeks

• Is he keeping his options open or is there some additional self-service at hand (his trademark as a human being)?
• Answer — “both”

We anticipate he will at least hang on ’til late January for the bump in his pension and in case dynamics change, like a grand up-swell of support for him from his constituency and you know the drill, further reflection away from the glare allowing him to conclude it is better for the good people of Minnesota that he stay.

The weasel-worded announcement serves to placate the urges of others for now (rather unlike his usual MO). He was pushed kicking and screaming to make such a move for the PR value of allowing  Democrats to conveniently at NO risk preen about women being respected and such leading into the Alabama Senate race.  See our post yesterday. Of course if any Senator from an at-risk state had Franken’s spastic hand disease he or she would be defended to the hilt, the accusers attacked.

Al, who has no shame, figures he deserves something for bucking the good folks in his home state who preferred Bernie. Hillary, who also has no shame, was jiggie wit it.

After the hoopla of the Alabama senate race is over, Franken having done as he was told, there is the possibility the powers-that -be will manufacture a grassroots movement to beg him to stay.  We say “manufactured” as the rank and file DFLers are likely not all that happy with Al after he voted for Hillary using his “hell with what you little people say”, super-delegate status to vote for Hillary at the DNC convention.  Doing so he subverted the will of the huge DFL turnout in the 2016 caucuses where they supported Sanders by 61% to 38% for Hillary.

Then there is the pension bump of 12% or so he gets for completing his ninth year sometime in January. It is not huge money, five thousand or so a year by our calculation, but over his likely remaining years on the planet a tidy some and worth the wait.

Shall we say he is less than transparent or actually contrite.

Related reading:

http://thefederalist.com/2017/12/07/franken-im-resigning-senate-even-though-didnt-anything-wrong/

http://theweek.com/articles/741994/al-franken-isnt-sorry

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/why-democrats-decided-franken-had-to-go/2017/12/07/b41a3c84-db51-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html?utm_term=.c2e719f26650

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