Can Ed Schultz follow Al Franken’s footsteps from radio to Senate?

Photo: Ed Schultz Show

Al Franken paved the way. Has progressive talk radio become the Democratic Party’s new farm league for the U.S. Senate? Maybe so, if the chatter about Ed Schultz running to replace North Dakota’s retiring Byron Dorgan turns out to be more than just talk.

On MSNBC, the radio host’s cable TV home, Schultz said state House Minority Leader Merle Boucher had asked him to think about a Senate bid:

I’m flattered. I’m honored. I can’t say that I’m even considering it right now,” Schultz said. “I’m in a different place right now. So we’re a long way from any kind of consideration.”

Schultz called Republican Gov. John Hoeven, another likely candidate, “vulnerable.”

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) wouldn’t comment in keeping with policy, according to Hotline On Call.

“The Ed Schultz Show” is heard on many of the stations that carried Franken’s own radio show, including AM 950 in the Twin Cities.

Schultz’s daily MSNBC show gives him a television platform that Franken didn’t have in the years leading to his 2008 Senate campaign — except for talk-show appearances and  re-runs of Saturday Night Live and other shows and movies.

But with the election just 11 months off, Schultz would have a lot less time than the two years (plus some at eithe end) that Franken’s campaign enjoyed.

North Dakota broadcasting was Schultz’s unlikely springboard to the national media scene, but it was a football scholarship to Minnesota State University Moorhead (then known as Moorhead State College) that originally brought him north from his home state of Virginia.

Here is the clip of Schultz discussing his “official ask” to run for the Senate: