That’s what bloggers and reporters have been asking in recent days. Well, on Saturday at midnight he was greeting union picketers with a hug and a kiss in the sleet in downtown Minneapolis. Video (and update) after the jump.

Franken’s Republican rival for the U.S. Senate, Norm Coleman, has been all over conservative radio and TV since a March 31 ruling that seemed to seal the former senator’s defeat in Minnesota’s election contest trial. On Tuesday judges will oversee the opening of only 400 absentee ballots — likely not enough to erase Democrat Franken’s 225-vote recount lead.

Franken, by contrast, has been little seen or heard from since March 28, when he told a gathering of young Democrats in St. Paul: “We will be seated — and by we, I mean we.”

But Saturday night, Franken was there when a small group of Communication Workers of America Local 7250 held an impromptu informational picket in the falling sleet outside the AT&T building in downtown Minneapolis. The occasion: Their contract with AT&T expired at midnight.

UPDATE: Walking with Franken under umbrellas were U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) and Paul Begala, the CNN commentator and former aide to President Clinton, who that evening delivered keynote speeches at the DFL Party’s annual Humphrey Day Dinner at the nearby Hilton Hotel. (The event was not open to the media.) Obama himself headlined the event in 2006 (video and audio) and the young Franken campaign made a video for the 2007 event.

Apparently not joining the after-party stroll was the third keynoter at the event, Mitch Stewart, director of President Obama’s new campaign group, Organizing for America, who last year ran Obama’s successful efforts at the Iowa caucus and in the general election in Virginia.  (I’ve e-mailed the Franken camp to ask what Kennedy was doing in town with Franken.)

In a video shot by the picketers, it’s not clear whether Franken and Kennedy sought out the protest or merely happened by. (Franken’s downtown townhouse is nearby and, as it happens, Franken’s old show, “Saturday Night Live,” had just wrapped up on NBC.)

In any case, Franken and Kennedy hear out a union member’s frustration with negotiations and Franken gives her a hug and a kiss.

Here’s the video:

Franken has spoken at the CWA hall the picketer mentions — “7200,” the offices of another CWA local on East Lake Street in Minneapolis. Franken addressed an enthusiastic crowd there only days after winning the DFL Party endorsement last summer.

Rep. Jim Ramstad Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke

GOP Congressman Jim Ramstad has asked President-elect Barack Obama’s advisors to consider naming him to lead the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) — and he’s enlisted top Democrats to help with his bid.

Ramstad, a Republican who is retiring this year after nine terms in Congress, approached Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) before Thanksgiving to discuss an appointment in the Obama administration. He would need support from Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, if Obama were to choose Ramstad to lead the $3.3 billion agency.

“Sen. Kennedy thinks very highly of Congressman Ramstad and feels that he is uniquely qualified to serve the country in this position,” a Kennedy spokesman said.

But Ramstad has also gotten support from allies in the House: Kennedy’s son, Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, and Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) have encouraged Obama’s senior advisers to make the appointment.

A Rhode Island Democrat, Kennedy has had two conversations about Ramstad with Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), Obama’s incoming chief of staff, and John Podesta, who is leading the transition team, a Congressional Democratic official familiar with the conversation said.

At an event last month at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Kennedy introduced Ramstad to former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who Obama likely will appoint to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy jokingly introduced Ramstad to Daschle as the “next SAMHSA administrator,” a Congressional Democratic official said.

Although Ramstad’s name has been floated as the next “drug czar,” or head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Ramstad’s congressional allies believe that SAMHSA is a better fit and a more realistic possibility for the nine-term congressman.

The Kennedys and Ramstad have developed a close bond during the past few years borne from their experiences with addiction (Ramstad is Rep. Kennedy’s AA sponsor) and their work on legislation requiring insurance companies to provide the same coverage for mental illnesses as they do for physical illnesses. Ramstad and Kennedy  are chairmen of the House’s bipartisan Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus.

In October, Congress approved Ramstad and Kennedy’s so-called mental health parity bill, which Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) initially championed before his untimely death in 2002. The bill was used as the vehicle to pass the $700 billion financial rescue package.

Ramstad may see less opposition as SAMHSA head than he would if named “drug czar.” While several interest groups oppose Ramstad as “drug czar,” sending a letter to Obama criticizing his opposition to needle exchange programs and medical marijuana, mental health and addiction advocates praised him.

“Appointing Jim Ramstad as SAMHSA director would raise the profile of addiction disorders within the agency,” Lizbet Boroughs, the deputy director of governmental relations at the American Psychiatric Association, said. “The past two administrators have been more mental health experts than addiction disorders.”

SAMHSA had not been decimated by budget cuts during the past decade or politicized. The biggest challenge is coordinating federal policy at the local level, Boroughs said.

Andrew Sperling, the director of legislative affairs at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said Ramstad would be a “fantastic addition” to the agency.

Other advocates, however, had a more tepid reaction.

“It’s a mixed bag at best,” Bill Piper, the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, said. “On the one hand, heading SAMHSA would put him in a good position within the Administration to champion the cause of implementing ‘parity’ fully. And he would no doubt fight for higher overall levels of drug treatment spending and be able to build Republican support in Congress.”

“But at the end of the day the most important issue isn’t funding for treatment per se, but funding for quality treatment. For years Rep. Ramstad’s parity bills excluded methadone and other Opioid treatments proven by decades of research to be the most effective treatment for heroin addiction,” Nadelmann said. “This was a subject of dispute between him and Senator [Paul] Wellstone (who was the lead sponsor of the Senate version).”

Despite the buzz over Ramstad, his supporters acknowledged there are other candidates and that Obama is getting advice from other sources, including Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick, an early supporter of Obama’s. Patrick has worked to increase spending on programs to help children coping with mental illness.

“Ultimately people have this is the president’s pick, at the end of the day,” the Congressional source said. “A lot of people are advising Barack and he will take a lot of suggestions from a lot of people and make up his own mind.”

A spokesman for Ramstad did not return phone calls for comment.

Related: Up in smoke: Will Ramstad’s faith-based earmark hurt his chances to win drug czar post?

Jonathan E. Kaplan is the Center for Independent Media’s Washington correspondent.

For Ramstad and Kennedy, the legislation is deeply personal.

Ramstad sought treatment for alcoholism early in his political career while Kennedy has struggled with bipolar disorder and drugs and alcohol. After Kennedy crashed his car into a police barrier at 2:45 a.m. in 2006, Ramstad befriended the son of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and encouraged him to seek treatment.

For Ramstad, a nine-term lawmaker who is retiring at year’s end, the bill’s passage cements his legacy. He labored for 12 years to pass the bill and, at times, he grew frustrated with the previous House Republican leadership for not acting on the bill.

“Our leadership refused to recognize the overwhelming empirical data. Ideology trumped personal pain and suffering,” Ramstad told The Hill newspaper in 2007.

President Bush promised in 2002 to sign a mental health parity bill at an event in New Mexico with Sen. Pete Domenici, a Republican, whose daughter suffers from schizophrenia.

“Our health insurance system must treat serious mental illness like any other disease,” Bush said at the time.

Jonathan E. Kaplan is Washington correspondent for the Center for Independent Media’s network of online news sites.