Amy and Al

"Are you on your way to work in Al Franken's office?" a man at the adjacent gas pump asked me in Pennsylvania as he eyed my Al Franken bumper sticker.

"I wish!" I replied. “But we ARE going to visit Minnesota’s other senator.”

He was one of many people who commented on the Senate race in Minnesota during our recent East Coast trip. People seemed to take a keen interest in the unresolved election and in the unusual situation of Minnesota’s having only one senator in Washington, DC.


As of noon today, with the swearing in of Al Franken, Minnesota finally has two senators. Thanks to Amy Klobuchar for doing double duty while seemingly endless recounts and legal challenges ground slowly to their conclusion in the Minnesota Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling last week that Franken had won the election by 312 votes.


A few days after this exchange, Nancy and I visited Senator Klobuchar in her office in the Hart Senate Office Building. Every Thursday, she hosts a "Minnesota Morning" for constituents who are visiting the capital. We were among the 80-plus Minnesotans who showed up to sample pastries from the Iron Range (where Amy grew up) and kibbutz with our senator.


It was the first time I had heard Amy Klobuchar speak. I was so impressed! Her commitment to the causes I believe in (environment, sensible health care, education, agriculture, and alternative energy), her articulate command of the issues, and her down-home humor and friendliness knocked me over. Unlike so many politicians, Senator Klobuchar seems the real deal, authentic to the core.


Nancy and I gave her a personally inscribed copy of our book, Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully: A Journey with Cancer and Beyond. Perhaps now that she’s not handling all of Minnesota’s requests for assistance with federal agencies, she’ll have some time for reading.
We hope that Senator Franken takes a page from his Minnesota colleague. If he works half as hard as the first woman our state has elected to the U.S. Senate, he will serve his constituents well.


And now, at last, I can take the Franken bumper sticker off my car!