Almanac: At the Capitol

Many of us in the Capitol press corps haven't had the time or space to fully cover Al Franken's financial problems. The reporters who are most likely to cover politics are based in the Capitol and we're heading into crunch time at the Capitol with less than three weeks now for lawmakers to pass bills. Capitol policy usually trumps politics for us. But over the weekend I had several normal non-partisan people ask me if Franken is in trouble. I don't know, nor would I venture an answer. *Update: Okay, Franken is now probably in real trouble with the AP revelations about him owing $70,000 in back taxes in 17 states.

What I was surprised at was that so much of this information is coming out during a legislative session. Republicans would have likely gotten more ink or airtime after session when there are fewer demands on our time. We're often covering several events simultaneously and there's a lot of news to choose from. In one of his many Capitol visits lately, I talked to Republican Party Chair Ron Carey about this today. He said the timing isn't strategic, he's just revealing the information as they're uncovering it. Carey admitted he'd rather Franken had "locked and loaded" the nomination, but they weren't planning to hold anything back.

What Democrats and Republicans have told me is that Republicans have more people and money assigned to opposition research. I've heard DFLers quietly complaining that the party needs to ramp up its opposition research and have staffers working on it full time.