Al Franken did Tuesday what campaign playbooks recommend when there's damaging news to be told. The U.S. Senate candidate himself broke the story that he owed at least 17 states some $70,000 in taxes, interest and penalties. He said he overpaid taxes by a similar amount in Minnesota and New York between 2003 and 2007
The news didn't come as a total surprise -- which suggests that DFLer Franken looked rather late to the playbooks for guidance. For more than a month, he'd been dealing with GOP reports of irregularities in his business finances. It was past time to get in front of that story and attempt to wrestle it into oblivion. Whether Franken's disclosure will have that effect is not at all clear.
Star Tribune.
