It could just turn out that Al Franken’s bid for the US Senate may be his best piece of comedy ever, a performance-art masterpiece that uses the Minnesota DFL Party as the butt of the joke. After chasing the much-more electable Michael Cerisi out of the primary race earlier this year, a series of revelations about Franken’s business practices has the DFL wondering what hit them — and how to get out of the trap in which Franken has put them. The Lady Logician has the roundup:

The fallout continues for Team Franken. Friday and Saturday saw stories in the Star Tribune on the Franken tax issues. Both stories have a common theme….that it is the fault of those nasty Republicans that Franken is having these troubles….

Responding to new Republican charges that DFL U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken hid income from California tax authorities for years, Franken’s campaign said Thursday that his accountant is trying to sort out whether taxes are owed. …

Republicans, who for more than a year have eagerly unearthed controversial tidbits from Franken’s comedy routines and books, have in recent weeks discovered several slip-ups in the celebrity’s business life. On Thursday, they claimed to have found another possible irregularity, a charge that has yet to be resolved.

On Friday, Franken’s campaign manager, Andy Barr, declined to say whether Franken had paid taxes on earnings in California between 2003 and 2007.

He said Franken’s accountant is working with California officials to sort things out.

The latest Republican charge that Franken’s taxes there have gone unpaid comes in the wake of earlier disclosures that Franken failed to pay workers’ compensation and disability premiums in New York and botched the dissolution of his California corporation.

While Republican opposition researchers (or in this case a FORMER Republican opposition researcher) may have uncovered these financial “irregularities”, let’s be perfectly clear here….the government of the states of New York and California are the ones making these charges…not the Republican Party.

Al Franken’s corporation got decertified by California for failing to pay its taxes. Since Al Franken served as the COO and apparently the CEO of the corporation, he had the responsibility for keeping up with the taxes and filing requirements in California. Despite whether the information came out from Republican research — or as Lady Logician notes, an independent new-media researcher who formerly worked within the state GOP — it doesn’t change the fact that Franken is an apparent tax dodger.

Franken will certainly settle accounts with both New York and California; he has enough wealth to comfortable take care of both situations. The question, however, is why the DFL got caught flat-footed by these revelations this close to the endorsing conventions. The party only has weeks to go before selecting its challenger to Norm Coleman’s seat, and the prospects for digging up another contender look very, very slim now.

Michael Brodkorb, who dug up all of this information on Franken, has a clip from a local political program where analyst Larry Jacobs can’t believe how unprofessional the Franken campaign is:

Read more about this at Minnesota Democrats Exposed and Ladies Logic. (via Jazz Shaw)