[Robson]

As a liberal-leaner, I'm concerned about this. I've seen a lot of interviews with Franken, and while I find him an effective writer, he's not a very charismatic presence. He tends to come off coarse and dismissive. It'll hurt the cause.

They'd be much better off with Jon Stewart (or any of the other folks from the Daily Show.)

[Reactionary]

Jon Stewart is an improvement, although not much of one.

Why is it that liberals come off as snide, condescending and dismissive?

[Cautor]

while I find him an effective writer...

B.S. Franken can barely write his name on a check. His so-called book was written by a gaggle of researchers assigned to baby-sit this dumbass while he paraded as a visiting scholar at Haavaad.

[Hot Tabasco]

As a liberal-leaner, I'm concerned about this. I've seen a lot of interviews with Franken, and while I find him an effective writer,

Actually his writing isn't very effectual either. For someone to write a book and name it "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar" and then have only one page in the entire book dedicated to his allegation, that proves a disgusting attempt to reap financial rewards via the coattails of a popular radio personality........

In summation, Franken is an irrelevant little twit who has already had his 15 minutes of fame but is trying to drag it out into a half hour.......Take the advise of a previous Freeper, don't buy stock in the show!

[HHFi]

I've worked in radio for 30 years, much of it for major syndicated program producers, and currently write an internationally-syndicated show prep service, so I know a bit about this business, and this is the screwiest business model I've ever seen. The backers can't possibly expect this to return a profit. It has to be a loss leader so they can promote their politics without having to obey campaign finance laws. People who have a viable, quality product in syndicated radio (like Rush, Hannity, or, ahem - me), do not have to buy stations to get it on the air, or pay stations to air it. They actually pay us. What a concept!

I've also heard from several of my client talk show hosts who've had Franken on, and they expect him to be awful as a host because they say he's awful as a guest. One of them told me he cut a Franken interview short because it was just tanking. Franken's style is to speak...very...slowly...with a heavy dollop of sarcastic condescension, as if telegraphing the idea that he knows he's talking to morons. That can get laughs in small doses on TV, but with radio, you have to have a personality that people want to invite into their lives for three hours a day, five days a week.

This is something liberals miss because they're trying to copy Rush Limbaugh without actually listening to them. If they listened to him, they'd discover that for the most part, he's upbeat, polite, welcomes liberals who want to argue with him, and keeps a sense of humor. But the liberal image of Limbaugh is based not on listening firsthand, but on reading what other liberals who haven't really heard him say about him. So they assume he's an angry, racist firebreather ranting to Cro-Magnons. They figure, "How hard can it be to beat that?" Well, they're about to find out.

For me, watching these liberals put together their "radio empire" makes me feel the way a professional plumber must feel watching the Three Stooges trying to fix a leaky pipe. My prediction is that almost all of Franken's callers will be conservatives wanting to argue with him (because that's mostly who listens to talk radio) and challenge him on the issues. They'll be better informed than he is, and with his inflated ego, he will handle this about as well as Howard Dean would and quickly resort to snide namecalling. The stations will mostly be dogs, the ratings will be miniscule, and Al will decide to "pursue other opportunities" within three to six months, perhaps opening a bed and breakfast with Mario Cuomo and Jim Hightower.