Al Franken gets serious.

Among the most pleasant tasks facing former comedian Al Franken, who announced on Valentine's Day that he is running for the late Paul Wellstone's Senate seat, is the prospect of spending the next year and a half explaining his jokes. As Franken hits the rubber chicken circuit to persuade Minnesota voters he's serious, his critics are digging through thousands of hours of tape from Saturday Night Live, and Air America, as well as Franken's books and speeches, to turn up all the outrageous and incendiary remarks Franken has made very publicly over the years.

They don't have to look very hard. Here are a few gems mined within the first few hours of Franken's campaign: a promotional video for his latest book on Amazon.com, in which Franken knees a "rightwing jerk" in the groin, after which a Franken fan hits the guy over the head with a bottle; a quote from the same book describing Franken's opponent, Senator Norm Coleman, as "one of the Administration's chief butt boys"; and a satirical 1976 remark that he was glad a gay man was murdered in a gay-bashing incident in Philadelphia.

Arianna Huffington, Franken's longtime friend and colleague, recently alluded to Franken's possible "macaca" troubles on her website, huffingtonpost.com, where Franken is a frequent contributor. "I wanted to come clean," she said jokingly, by releasing a video of herself and Franken covering the 1996 political conventions in their p.j.'s for a provocative SNL skit called "strange bedfellows."

Being in bed with Huffington is the least of it. The sheer volume of outrageous material on Franken could be a nightmare for any political candidate. Just look at the frenzy generated by John Kerry's remark about American kids who don't make the most of their education and "get stuck in Iraq." On the other hand, there is so much on Al Franken, it might inure voters to the whole topic of his comedic past.

One problem, as conservative columnist Amanda Carpenter tartly points out in a piece headlined "I Endorse Al Franken" in the rightwing magazine Human Events, is the sometimes puerile crudeness of Franken's jokes. Quoting Franken's "butt boy" quip, Carpenter writes, "What elegance. What wit. We can't wait for his campaign."

It's true that Franken doesn't sound exactly senatorial when he resorts to such language.

Human Events goes further, and connects this style to what conservatives see as Franken's crude leftwing politics. Making fun of his political action committee, Midwest Values PAC, for its Hollywood liberal contributors and far-out ideals, such as "gay marriage, universal health care, abortion rights and tax cut repeals," Carpenter confidently predicts that Franken's Senate campaign will crash and burn.

Actually, though, Franken is on to something when he connects Midwest values and outspoken liberalism. He invoked a history of liberal Minnesota statesmen in his announcement speech, saying he is following in the footsteps of Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale, and Paul Wellstone. Next door, Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, who is Franken's polar opposite in style--a strait-laced advocate of civility and bipartisanship--has won over Midwestern voters repeatedly, while endorsing gay marriage, universal health care, abortion rights, and tax cut repeals.

In fact, some of Franken's critics on the left worry that he may be too much of a centrist, particularly on the Iraq War. Paul Hogarth, an activist in California who ran a Wellstone for President website, wonders if Franken is a worthy successor to Wellstone. He wants Franken to renounce his early support for the Iraq War and take a clear stand for withdrawing troops.

The biggest challenge for Franken, says Jeff Blodgett, who founded Wellstone Action, a group that helps recruit and train grassroots organizers and political candidates in memory of the late Senator, is going to be taking himself out of the spotlight. "The key, when you're running against an incumbent, is to make the race a referendum on whether the incumbent has served the state well or not," Blodgett says.

Norm Coleman has been a loyal supporter of the Bush Administration. That should be the focus of the Minnesota Senate race, Blodgett says. "The race has to be about Coleman, not Al Franken, and that's a challenge for someone who is in the limelight as Al is."

Blodgett likes the campaign so far, and, unlike Hogarth, doesn't mind Franken's celebrity background. "He can generate a lot of grassroots energy and excitement," Blodgett says. But whether Franken can overcome his Saturday Night Live persona and transform himself into a good candidate is "a legitimate question," he says.

After all, this is the guy who baited Fox News blowhard Bill O'Reilly into an apoplectic rage and a frivolous lawsuit, who wrote to John Ashcroft requesting that the then-Attorney General share a moment when he was tempted to have sex and resisted the urge so that Franken could include the account in an alleged book called Savin'It. Franken's real books, including Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, have offered hilarious, cathartic relief to millions of people who are sick of the rightwing stranglehold on American politics.

In his announcement, Franken said Minnesotans had a right to ask whether he was up to the job. Then he went on to talk about his connection to Minnesota, where he grew up, and his belief in economic opportunity for middle class and poor working class families like his own family and that of his in-laws. It was, says Blodgett, "the right tone and style."

There's no question that Franken is smart enough and energetic enough to be a U.S. Senator, and his values are mainline progressive--very much in the liberal, Midwestern tradition. If he could turn himself into Stuart Smalley, he can probably become a decent candidate. Even his outrageous antics might go over fine with the voters who gave us Governor Jesse Ventura. But if he wants to make it to the Senate, Franken will have to tone himself down--first to make his campaign about his incumbent opponent, and then to work with the other members of the "elite club" of 100, as members like to call the Senate. In which case Minnesota's gain may be a bit of a loss for Franken, and for the rest of us.

Ruth Conniff is the political editor of The Progressive.