It will take someone other than the standard candidate to get people to believe that America’s course can be changed, that hope can be restored, Franken said. He’s confident Democratic activists, the ones who will be endorsing a candidate in June to run against Coleman, are deciding he’s the guy.

“People are looking at me and thinking if they want to win the election, they want somebody to get excited about and that all Minnesotans can get excited about,” he said. “... I clearly connect to people and relate to people.”

As the biggest name among the Democratic candidates, Franken has already been targeted by the state Republican Party and conservative bloggers. Culling quotations from his books, national radio show, speeches and interviews, they found more than a few harsh comments, sometimes including vulgarities, made about various Republican officials.

They also portray Franken — who has received financial support from famous folks he met while working in the entertainment industry — as the candidate of Hollywood liberals instead of average Minnesotans.

Franken said when he talks with Minnesotans about his background and his ideas, the Republican attempts to define him quickly crumble.

He’s not talking about the well-known stuff: his work as a writer and occasional performer on “Saturday Night Live,” his book-writing (including the No. 1 bestseller “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot”) or his show on the liberal talk-radio network Air America.

He’s talking about moving with his family at the age of 4 to Albert Lea and two years later to St. Louis Park; about his middle-class youth, living in a two-bedroom house with his parents and brother; about earning admission to Harvard University after graduating from high school.

Franken notes he and his wife, Franni, have been married for 32 years and have raised two sons. And he emphasizes his seven USO tours to entertain American soldiers, including four trips to Iraq.

“When my life and my views start to take shape for people, it doesn’t conform to the Republican stereotype that the Republicans are desperate to put out,” he said. “They start to listen to my stance on issues. And they agree with me.”

Health care is the first issue he brings up. He supports universal health care while setting up a test case for an American version of the single-payer system used in most Western countries. Franken would like to see the federal government require states to implement universal health care coverage, giving them the freedom to use whatever combination of market-based and government-controlled strategies they like.

He would require a single-payer system for kids, a fair way to examine whether that system will be accepted by the broader population, he said.

Asked about issues ranging from the federal deficit to problems with the Social Security to immigration, Franken gives earnest, detailed answers. There are occasional jokes, but he wants it to be clear he’s serious about representing Minnesota in the U.S. Senate.

He remembers his youth in St. Louis Park in the 1950s and 1960s, when people were optimistic about the future and America was “going gangbusters.”

“We can do that again. We can be that America again,” he said. “We can start to turn this around now.”

Mike Ciresi: Trial lawyer focusing on the future