Franken gushes over prairies in National Geographic senatorial draw-off

No, it’s not the return flight-path for those errant Northwest Airlines pilots. It’s U.S. Sen. Al Franken’s hand-drawn map of Minnesota, done on spec for National Geographic. 

Franken and 10 other senators responded to the magazine’s request that they draw the outline of their home states, marking three important places. The assignment was right up Franken’s alley, since he regularly shows off his ability to draw a freehand map of the entire United States from memory.

But highlighting only three places stumped Franken, who responded in wordy fashion with “the importance of Minnesota in the region,” “the entire state” and  ”my hometown, St. Louis Park.”

In attempting to cover all conceivable bases while not playing favorites, Franken seems to have inadvertently tipped his hand, mentioning the state’s prairie land twice:

There’s natural beauty throughout Minnesota, from the Boundary Waters in the Northeast that we share with Canada to the prairies in the west back to the gorgeous bluffs of southeastern Minnesota. There’s the prairies of the west — the fertile farmland along the Red River Valley of the North and the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.

The senators’ entries appear to have been done in permanent marker, so even if Franken realized he’d let his prairie obsession show, he couldn’t fix it. Or maybe he’s trying to curry favor in areas where Democrats have to work harder for votes. In any case, here’s his whole sketch: