false 23576 0452287677 9780452287679 1382 117 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23576.The_Truth 13311 Al Franken 9129 814 4 0 false Sun Oct 19 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 20 14:02:25 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 20 14:43:25 -0700 2008
Al's uphill Senate race against the odious Norm Coleman in Minnesota inspired me to pluck this off my shelf. I wasn't sure how it would hold up since 4 years seems like a lifetime ago, but it was very interesting, even surreal. I'm reading about the corruption of Tom Delay, and now he's a go-to commentator on Fox News. I'm reading about Ralph Reed's money laundering two years after he ran for Lieutenant Governor in my state. I'm reading about the escalation of violence in Iraq when those numbers have finally fallen. I'm reading about Democratic minorities, and now we've got a Democratic majority. I'm reading about why Kerry lost 15 days out from what looks to be a comfortable Obama win. Like I said. Interesting.

I don't know that I really learned anything new, but it was interesting to remember how tame the Democratic convention was in 2004 and find out that there were individuals who were responsible for "scrubbing" negativity out of all of the speeches before they went into the teleprompter, and that no speech was allowed to mention "George W. Bush." by name. Al mentions offhand that 155,000 people gave donations to Al Gore, and that Kerry received contributions from over a million. This is particularly timely since we found out yesterday that Obama has wracked up an incredible 3.6 million individual donors. 155,000 donations in 2000 to 3,600,000 in 2008. Crazy.

Anyway. It was a fun time, and I wish Al the best of luck.

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