In a subsequent book, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” Franken blasted President George W. Bush ’s administration and Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly, among others. It so incensed O’Reilly that he got into a confrontation with Franken — calling him “vicious” — at a book convention. But Franken said he has long been irked by what he considers Republicans’ hypocrisy and distortions of the truth. “What I do is jujitsu,” he told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in October 2008. “They say something ridiculous and I subject them to scorn and ridicule.”

Franken sought to be taken seriously as a political candidate, though. He portrayed himself as a successor to the legacy of Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, a passionate champion of progressive causes who died in an October 2002 plane crash. “I think the people that are paying attention — the reason I’m doing so well right now — they understand that I’m talking about the issues that affect them and that I’m a serious guy,” Franken told The Washington Post in October 2008.

Toward the Center, Sometimes

Unlike Wellstone, Franken took some centrist positions during his campaign. Though he supports universal health care, he said states should be allowed to devise their own methods for expanding coverage rather than be subjected to a single federally mandated system. He said he supported the idea of setting a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, but he declined to endorse the view among liberals during Bush’s presidency that all troops should come home at once.

He said he wants to work to establish a “green economy” that addresses global warming and creates jobs. But he opposes raising gasoline taxes, saying high prices at the pump hurt the working class. He also called for making the tax code fairer by increasing the tax credit for college tuition and child care.

To learn about avoiding the potential pitfalls of being a celebrity senator, he consulted Tamara Luzzatto, who served as chief of staff to then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton after the former first lady was elected from New York. “A lot of people have been sort of saying, ‘You should really study Hillary’s model of being a senator,’ “ he told the Post in February 2009. “She worked across party lines, wasn’t grabbing the microphone.”

Despite never having held office, Franken said he’s always been fascinated by politics. As a child growing up in Minnesota, where he moved from New York when he was 4 years old, he would discuss current events at the family dinner table. His father — a Republican who left the party in disgust over its opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act — owned a fabric factory and later worked as a printing salesman, while his mother sold real estate. Franken grew up in St. Louis Park, a Minneapolis suburb, and was a high-school wrestler before attending Harvard University.

After a short stint in show business in Los Angeles, Franken and his writing and performing partner, Tom Davis, were hired in 1975 for a new late-night TV show, “Saturday Night Live,” originally splitting a salary of $350 a week. They became among its most prolific writers and appeared in numerous skits; Franken argued in one irony-laden commentary that if the 1970s were known as the “Me Decade,” the 1980s should be the “Al Franken Decade.”

Franken moved back to Los Angeles and worked as a screenwriter and actor, then returned to “Saturday Night Live.” He also began dabbling in politics, providing commentary for CNN at the 1988 Democratic National Convention and anchoring Comedy Central’s election coverage in 1992 and 1996. That latter year, he published his humorous diatribe against Limbaugh, seeking to debunk many of his statements. Though it inflamed conservatives and spawned a couple of critical biographies of Franken, its success led to several other comedic books, including “Why Not Me?” an imaginary look at his run for president in 2000.

In 2004, he signed up as a host with Air America, a fledgling liberal network aimed at countering the right wing’s heavy use of talk radio to convey its message. He hosted a show, “The O’Franken Factor,” a play on Fox host O’Reilly’s TV program. After the death of Wellstone, a close friend for whom he had campaigned, Franken began thinking about a Senate run.

A Long Road

Franken in 2008 went in as an underdog against Coleman, who had sought to distance himself from the Bush administration on the Iraq War, increasing the minimum wage and other issues. But as the economy worsened and presidential candidate Barack Obama ’s campaign gained traction, Franken began climbing in the polls.

Both candidates brought in national figures from their respective parties to lend their support, and their campaigns traded and parried accusations. Franken was criticized for failing to pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes and for writing in 2000 a sexually explicit satiric article in Playboy magazine that some Minnesota Republicans said was “demeaning and degrading” to women.

After the election, in which both candidates received 42 percent of the vote, a recount ended with Franken holding a narrow lead. But Coleman challenged the results in court, questioning county election officials over absentee ballots he feared may have been improperly rejected or overlooked. Republicans took up his cause, further motivated in spring 2009 when Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter switched from the Republican to the Democratic caucus. That meant that if Franken won, he would become the 60th member of that caucus — a group large enough in theory to block Republican filibusters, the GOP’s primary weapon against the majority party’s agenda.

Both Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie refused to sign the necessary certification for a winner to be seated in the Senate until all appeals in the state ran their course. “I admit to being frustrated at times,” Franken told The Associated Press in February 2009. “But it’s a little out of my control. What is in my control is to prepare so that when I get to the Senate, I’m ready to go on day one.”

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