Buoyed by a new Star Tribune poll that shows him with a nine-point lead over Sen. Norm Coleman, Al Franken was joined by Al Gore today at Northrop Auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus. The pair spoke to a crowd of more than 1,000 people that included Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Reps. Tim Walz and Keith Ellison and former Vice President Walter Mondale.

Walz got the crowd fired up before Franken and Gore took the stage.

Franken vowed to unseat Coleman: “We can have more of the same with John McCain and Norm Coleman, or we can work harder than we’ve ever worked before in the next 31 days and we can have change.”

Gore lambasted the last eight years of Republican misrule: “If this record were to be rewarded, … what would it say about the vitality of our democracy? I don’t believe that’s going to happen this time.”