Minnesota Republicans are scolding DFL Senate candidate Al Franken for a campaign fundraiser hosted Monday by Playboy CEO Christie Hef- ner at her Chicago-area home -- and taking him to task for a sexually explicit satire he wrote for that magazine eight years ago.
Meanwhile, DFLers are calling on Republican incumbent Norm Coleman to divest his reelection campaign of nearly $10,000 received from the political-action committee and employees of a lobbying firm that represented Myanmar's military regime.
With endorsing conventions for the U.S. Senate race rapidly approaching, the leading candidates are under attack by political opponents for taking contributions from controversial donors.
In Coleman's case, it's the oppressive face of Myanmar's junta that has been on display since the devastating cyclone this month that killed nearly 80,000 people.
With Franken, it's the magazine that made pornography in the United States big business and which has been accused of exploiting women under a veneer of sophistication.
Campaign donors may provide some clues on what's of interest or importance to a candidate, but studies show that very few voters actually cast their ballots based on where the candidate's money came from, said David Schultz, a Hamline University professor who specializes in government ethics and politics.
However, attacks such as those launched by the parties in the past few days put candidates on the defensive, Schultz said. And that's by design.
"It basically keeps you off message and distracts you from what you're doing," he said.
Kathryn Pearson, an assistant political science professor at the University of Minnesota who studies Congress, said the contributions suggest that "this is going to be a very expensive race."
On the other hand, she said, "If isolated in a campaign where they will have many fundraisers and receive money from a record number of people, I don't see this as being particularly damaging."
Franken and Playboy
Franken is no stranger to Playboy magazine. He was the subject of Playboy's "20Q" feature in January 2004 and was interviewed by the magazine two years later.
For more than 20 years, Hef- ner, the daughter of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, has held fundraisers for Democratic candidates and contributed tens of thousands of dollars to them. Recipients include Michael Dukakis, Paul Simon, Bill Clinton, Tom Harkin, Joseph Biden and Barack Obama (in 2003 and last year).
When Hillary Rodham Clinton ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000, her Republican opponent criticized her for taking money from the "pornography magnate." That same year, according to campaign records, Christie Hefner donated $500 to Minnesota DFL U.S. Senate candidate Rebecca Yanisch, who waged an unsuccessful primary campaign.
Yanisch, who is on the executive committee of the Minnesota Women's Campaign Fund, said that her fundraiser in 2000 was "a strong feminist" who had introduced her to Hefner. "She indicated that Christie was a good donor and a good supporter, and I felt comfortable accepting that donation," Yanisch said.
Asked if she thought it wrong for Franken to accept help from Hefner, Yanisch said: "No. It would be hypocritical if I said otherwise."
The Franken article criticized Monday by Republicans, a satirical piece with the headline "Porn-O-Rama!" describes a fantasy visit that Franken makes to a virtual sex institute, guided by a voluptuous futurist trained in Minnesota. In the narrative, Franken writes that "[s]ince I've been married 23 years, I naturally chose" virtual oral sex, and he describes the experience in explicit detail.
In a statement, state Rep. Joyce Peppin, R-Rogers, said she was "offended by Al Franken's continuing depiction of women as objects for men to enjoy and mock."
Republican spokesman Mark Drake said that Franken's willingness to accept a fundraiser by Hefner "is just another example of Franken's focus and judgment being outside of Minnesota, and with people who care little about our state or our concerns."
Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr said in an e-mail that, among other things, Hefner is a prominent philanthropist, that she helped found Emily's List, that she has served on the board of the National Women's Political Caucus, and that she is "a prominent supporter of progressive candidates and causes across the country."
Coleman and Myanmar
Coleman received contributions from employees and the political action committee of the DCI Group, a lobbying firm. DFL officials called for him to give the money to charity after Newsweek reported earlier this month that DCI chief executive Doug Goodyear was paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Myanmar's junta. Goodyear, who had been asked by the John McCain campaign to run this year's Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities, resigned from the job.
But the Coleman campaign says it doesn't intend to turn back the contributions from DCI, saying that the money was a legal donation and that the company's activities also were legal.
Tom Steward, who works in Coleman's Senate office, said that the senator "never had a discussion with DCI regarding the military junta in Myanmar, and if he had he would have told the junta to free their people and make human rights and liberty a priority."
Said Barr, of the Franken campaign, "Norm Coleman took nearly $10,000 from the firm that represented a brutal military dictatorship currently standing in the way of humanitarian aid after a natural disaster, a firm even John McCain has distanced himself from.
"Coleman won't divest himself of the money, he won't disclose what he did to get it, and he won't answer questions about his relationship with the firm. That's a scandal, and it won't go away until Norm Coleman comes clean about DCI."
Kevin Duchschere 612-673-4455
