"... Franken had words for politicians ... 'Most of them aren’t doctors either, but that doesn’t stop them from making decisions about women’s health,' Franken said."

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Franken and Murray take tennis shoes off and target the brothers Koch
By Joel Connelly, April 9, 2015

“Golden Tennis Shoes” awards were given out Thursday to three worthy citizens who have overcome handicap and malady, at an annual luncheon fundraiser sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

But Murray and Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., the guest of honor, seemed to be taking up an insult from the Arab world — hurling shoes at right-wing billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.

Murray has no Republican challenger in the field for 2016.  The four-term senator needs an adversary to rouse the troops.  The Koch brothers are serving as stand-ins.

“There are 1,200 people here: If we each give 1 million dollars, we can swamp the Koch brothers,” joked Franken, once a “Saturday Night Live” regular as well as a tormentor of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly.

The Golden Tennis Shoes luncheon has for years been an affordable way that Democratic activists can hear such speakers as Franken, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and then-first lady Hillary Clinton.

The event this year featured an annoyingly repetitive pitch for campaign cash.

“Give at least $89 if you can afford it; it is a fraction of what the Koch brothers will spend,” said pitch person Heather Redman.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., in her warmup act, took another shot at “our friends the Koch brothers.”

The two billionaire oilmen run a network of political fronts: The campaign against climate legislation and consumer protection, TV spots for conservative U.S. Senate candidates, and a database to rival the Republican Party.

Still, attacks on the Koch brothers have not worked for the Democrats.  Surveys show that a vast majority of Americans don’t know who they are.

But Murray has been warning about the brothers Koch in fundraising appeals, and Thursday before a packed ballroom at the Westin.

The awards part of the program was, as always, moving.  The luncheon’s name stems from an incident years ago when an unnamed legislator told Murray, trying to save a preschool program, that she was “just a mom in tennis shoes.”

A 2015 award recipient, John Evans, who has worked years for people with disabilities, recalled a similar story from his boyhood in Chelan.  A school counselor told Evans that, due to deafness, the most he could hope for was to work in local orchards.

“I think both of them, the legislator and the high school counselor, should get a Golden Tennis Shoe award,” quipped Franken, “and the tennis shoe should be kicking them in the butt.”

The other winners were Penny Codell of University Place and Zoe Cardwell of Puyallup.  After suffering a traumatic brain injury in a car crash, Codell founded a group called Brain Energy Support Team to work with families of those similarly afflicted.

Cardwell, born with five heart defects, has worked with families of those suffering similar health problems early in life.

Franken has kept his comedy in check since entering the Senate in 2009. It is now expressed in asides and irony.

Franken took note of Murray’s background as a preschool teacher “which, come to think of it, is pretty good training for service in the United States Senate, as, I suppose, is being a comedian.”

And Franken had words for politicians — notably Republican House Speaker John Boehner — who have ducked questions on climate change with the well-rehearsed one-liner, “I’m not a scientist.”

“Most of them aren’t doctors either, but that doesn’t stop them from making decisions about women’s health,” Franken said.

Murray has had four tough Senate races.  She has defeated three Republican members of Congress and bested two-time GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi in the Republican year of 2010.

Will Republicans at last give her a free ride?  Don’t count on it.
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