‘Al Franken Show’ goes on tour

Political radio show heading for swing states

updated 3:49 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2004

NEW YORK - Al Franken is taking his radio show on the campaign trail.

“The Al Franken Show” will broadcast live across the country starting Thursday and ending Oct. 9, making stops in eight cities including swing state battlegrounds Minneapolis; Columbus, Ohio; and Miami.

“It serves a lot of purposes,” Franken told The Associated Press Tuesday. “The main one is to drive me into the ground before the elections.”

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The satirist-commentator shares hosting duties with Katherine Lanpher for the show, one of the daily programs on the six-month-old liberal talk radio network Air America Radio.

Franken says he’ll pay O’Reilly $1 million if he can prove his blue-collar history of a childhood in Levittown, N.Y.

Franken jokes that his audiences will weed out Republicans the way liberals are kept at bay from Bush campaign events: “We will arrest anyone with a Bush/Cheney sticker!” He adds: “There will be no loyalty oaths.”

The tour will open in San Diego and then head to San Francisco; Denver; Minneapolis; Madison, Wis.; Columbus; Miami; and Tampa, Fla.

“The Al Franken Show” airs weekdays from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. (ET).

When asked about Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly’s recent interview on “60 Minutes,” in which O’Reilly called Franken a “character assassin,” the comedian said he wasn’t surprised.

And Franken says he’ll pay O’Reilly $1 million if he can prove his blue-collar history of a childhood in Levittown, N.Y. (O’Reilly has defended his upbringing as being in a part of Levittown, but technically in the adjoining town of Westbury.)

And with the presidential debates beginning Thursday, Franken says he would take President Bush to task for flip-flops of his own — a frequent criticism the administration levels at Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

Franken says in a singsong voice: “You declare support for free trade, flippity! You set steel tariffs, floppity! Then you take them off ... flippity, floppity!”