Al Franken at Earth Day event. Photo: Chris Steller

Al Franken told an Earth Day crowd in Minneapolis Wednesday morning that the time is near for him to head to the U.S. Senate: “I’ll be going to Washington soon,” he said as the crowd cheered. But he made the uncertainty of his status plain when he clarified his plans for reporters: “We were thinking of going next week, but I think there’s going to be some real heavy lifting by the Senate so it might not be the best time.”

Three months after a recount and nine days after a court ruling that both declared him the winner of November’s election, Franken is still 1,000 miles and untold weeks from doing any heavy lifting himself on Capitol Hill.

An appeal by Franken’s Republican rival, Norm Coleman, to the Minnesota Supreme Court is holding up an election certificate for Franken.

Without the official certification, Franken can’t be seated in the Senate.

Franken may not have realized it but in Minneapolis today, he was only a stone’s throw from the home of Minnesota’s lone U.S. senator, Amy Klobuchar. She wasn’t home.

Klobuchar was busy in the nation’s capital this morning, speaking at a press conference about wildlife protection, advocating energy conservation at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and introducing legislation to help people pay for alternative energy technologies.

Still, when she’s in her home state, Klobuchar lives just two-and-a-half blocks from the park where her “future colleague,” as Franken puts it, spoke today.

And though he has spoken in public on other occasions — at party meetings, press conferences, an ipromptu chat — today’s gathering was likely his first truly public outdoor speech since Election Day.

Franken was in a park that carries a name — Holmes, as in the legendary Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes — that conjures up a destination — the U.S. Supreme Court — where Democrats hope the Minnesota U.S. Senate election won’t be headed.

Beaming from behind a podium under sunny skies, Franken looked sartorially non-senatorial, wearing a black T-shirt designed for the event over a maroon, long-sleeved shirt.

The “Walk for Water” event was sponsored by Aveda, a Minnesota-based health and beauty corporation that runs a nearby cosmetology school. That inspired this ice-breaker from the so-called former comedian: “I talk to a lot of groups across the state and this group has the best looking hair and skin of any group.”

He hailed “a new era with a new president who understands that the global challenges we face call for real American leadership.”

Then he promised: “I’ll be going to Washington soon and telling my colleagues that my friends here in Minnesota are ready to do their share of the work [on social problems].”

Franken endorsed the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals, urging global leadership and local activism to reach them.

After he left the podium to the blaring notes of the 1980 rock hit “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” Franken answered a few questions from reporters.

His thoughts on the “senator-elect” title with which he was introduced?

I suspect that if people want to introduce me that way, they will. I’m not going to stop them.

Is he going to be doing more events?

I guess so. Sure.

Going to Washington, D.C., anytime soon?

We don’t have any immediate plans. We were thinking of going next week but I think there’s going to be some real heavy lifting by the Senate so it might not be the best time. But we’ll go soon.

What does the Senate leadership have to say while you’re waiting for the election certificate?

Well, they’re also going to be waiting for that. We anticipate that we’ll — we’re very confident about winning that. Once that is over, we are confident that I’ll be seated and I’ll be able to get to work.

What about the question of whether Gov. Tim Pawlenty will issue the election certificate?

Again, I’m very certain that the governor will do the right thing. The state Supreme Court has said that once the loser has exercised all his options … then the winner should be certified. I know the governor will adhere to the law.

Before Monday’s filing, did he think that Coleman might not appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court after all?

Well they had said they’d file immediately, and when they didn’t I thought that maybe they were rethinking it because of the nature of the ruling that the three-judge panel had put out. But evidently they decided not to file immediately for some reason and then did yesterday.

Before the man who answers to “senator-elect” drove away, Eric Hedican approached Franken — but not for an autograph, as a fan named Mari had done moments before.

Hedican, who teaches just across the park at Marcy Open School, told Franken how much he wished the school’s students, particularly those in social studies classes, had been able to hear him speak.

Instead, Hedican told the Minnesota Independent, Marcy students were beginning another day of mandatory standardized tests known as the MCAs (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment) just as Franken was speaking about the “long road” to a better world.

A footnote: Those Marcy students might have been called Wellstone students. After the untimely 2002 death of the man who held the Senate seat that Franken aims to attain, there was an effort to rename Marcy Open School in honor of Paul Wellstone.

But neighbors and alumni who wanted to keep the century-old school’s original name carried the day. So as Franken spoke, students across Holmes Park were filling in ovals at a school still named for William Learned Marcy — a man who managed to get elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.

Marcy served only two years in the Senate before resigning to be New York’s governor. He also served two presidents as secretary of war and secretary of state. But he’s best remembered for having popularized the ancient saying, “To the victor belong the spoils.”

Now if Minnesota could only decide who the victor is.

Video from the event, via The UpTake:

In between, especially in the Dinkytown area — where Bob Dylan, who playsed on campus last tonight, made his folk-singing debut — student sign-wavers stood on every corner flashing blue Obama signs. At University and 15th avenues SE, a young woman waved a hand-drawn sign that read simply, “HOPE.” (The “O” had Obama’s wheatfield logo inside.) Obama’s face looked out from “VOTE” signs on every utility poll up and down University Avenue and Fourth Street SE, two of the main campus thorough fares.

State Rep. Phyllis Kahn (DFL-Minneapolis), who is running for her 19th term in the Minnesota Legislature (and ran to her polling place at Marcy School for her morning jog), said today’s scenes of massive turnout already surpass anything she has seen in her 44 years in Minnesota.