That's Senator Franken To You

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

Al Franken, the former SNL Funnyman, has won the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, with his decidedly unfunny opponent, Norm Coleman conceding defeat.

Way to go guys. Only took you eight months. Healthy children have been conceived and born in that time, albeit prematurely.

For Republicans, this is yet another in a long line of kicks to gaping hole that used to be their gut. Not only does their Doomsday Theory of 60 seats in the Senate being controlled by Democrats inch closer to reality, but simply speaking, they threw the pocketbook at this problem, spending over a million bones in the last three months.

I've only met handful of people from Minnesota, and none of them are worth a million dollars.

That's not to say that Democrats didn't put a lot into soon-to-be Senator Franken's campaign either. Franken is going to have an even greater impetus to achieve in his inaugural term. He will be heavily scrutinized by his opponents, but also the independents in the Land of 10,000 Metaphorical Lakes.

I'm very interested to see how Franken fares, regardless of his political leanings. Democrats can recognize good, hard work from Republicans and vice versa. Independents don't care about that stuff anyway. Franken should have no problem being a good speaker, but let's see if he is persuasive. Or at least worth the trouble of letting Minnesota go eight months without being represented by two Senators.

Even Arkansas has that.

Speaking of the Natural State, the local angle could be that now Sens. Lincoln and Pryor, moderate, rural Democrats, will have more pressure on them than they had when Democrats lacked the filibuster-ending 60 votes. Every Democratic vote will now be crucial. Expect those who are trying to temper the more liberal-inclinations of the party for the sake of their political lives — like Lincoln, a Democrat up for re-election in 2010 in conservative Arkansas — to feel more heat.

Today, Lincoln and Pryor both professed their reservations for the House-approved Cap-and-Trade bill. While it will be much more difficult to achieve in the Senate, you can tell by the ruckus in the House that it's an important Democratic issue. And if President Obama is going to phone lil ole Rep. Mike Ross, D-Pig's Knuckle, and try to get him to vote for such legislation, one has to believe that for Obama-issues, Pryor and Lincoln will get Obama-calls too.

I'm looking forward to hearing Franken's first floor speech. And I'll be watching for Pryor and Lincoln's reactions.