Ten minutes of rational arguments from a U.S. politician? This viral hit on YouTube stars Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn) explaining his clear ideas on health care reform in the U.S. during the Minnesota State Fair.
Gone are the days of Stuart Smalley, and enter stage right a chunk of a “productive conversation on health care,” as blogger/uploader Dusty Rice calls it. The video has been making the rounds in political circles, mainly on lefty sites – at the time of publication, the clip accumulated 500,000 views within six days.
It’s a notable video for several reasons: it depicts a U.S. senator talking to actual people instead of news anchors, listening to each argument and responding in kind Al Franken is the rookie senator in the Hall of White Men, so he needs to prove himself after a contentious Minnesota Senate race and Franken segues nicely to other topics of interest, such as veteran affairs. It’s impressive to see the crowd actually listen to Franken instead of interrupt a la the town hall ugliness we’ve seen in the past two months.
The headline makes the clip sound more confrontational than it really is. “Angry mob”? Makes a great tabloid headline, but the crowd surrounding Franken were hardly unruly. A better description would’ve been “Franken Talks Rationally with Polite Crowd.” But what kind of online sensation would be crowned with that header, right?
