Al Franken is liable to surprise and disappoint a lot of people who expect him to be the cut-up of the Senate Class of 2008.

That applies both to liberals who would like to see him unsheath the rhetorical sledgehammer he often applied to conservative icons such as George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter, and to conservatives who envision Franken reverting to shtick and embarrassing the Democrats in Washington and back in Minnesota.

The clue here is the very sober demeanor that Franken projected virtually throughout his Senate campaign, his first bid for public office after many years of backing liberal causes.

It's always nice to start out the week on a bipartisan note, so I was intrigued by the e-mail press release sent out this morning by Pat Toomey, the staunch conservative who currently has the 2010 Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary field to himself.

The subject line reads, "Toomey Commends Reps. Altmire, Carney, Holden, and Dahlkemper on Cap-and-Trade Vote." Those named are Democrats! Specifically, the four Pennsylvania House Democrats who joined 40 other members of their party Friday in voting against a sweeping bill that would cap industrial emissions link to global warming and mandate increased use of alternative energy sources, among other provisions.

The measure -- described by most Democrats as necessary to prevent environmental catastrophe and put the nation on the road to energy independence, and portrayed by most Republicans as a massive "energy tax" -- squeaked through by a 219-212 vote.

Peter Schiff is a investor and financial analyst who has gotten plenty of face time on national television, thanks to the fact that he accurately predicted the decline of the nation's financial sector.

During an appearance Tuesday on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to plug his book, "Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse," Schiff revealed that he is "potentially considering" running as a Republican against vulnerable Connecticut Democratic Sen. Christopher J. Dodd -- the Senate Banking Committee chairman whose ties to the financial industry are causing him political headaches as he prepares to run for a sixth Senate term.

But if he were to run, Schiff would be asking Connecticut residents to do something he claims he doesn't make a habit. Namely voting.

Democratic Sen. Christopher J. Dodd is going all high-techie in the discussion of health care reform.

A press release sent out by his office Friday morning announced that Dodd, in his role as a senior member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and chairman of its Subcommittee on Children and Families, "is soliciting feedback from constituents on how best to reform our nation's health care system as part of YouTube's Senator of the Week feature." Dodd "is asking YouTube users from Connecticut and across the country to record their ideas and present them to Congress via the YouTube Senate Hub."

Ah, now, if he had just caught the YouTube bug during his brief, ill-fated campaign for the 2008 presidential campaign. One of the reasons Dodd appears vulnerable in his 2010 re-election campaign is that he spent weeks prior to Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses scouring that state -- and even moved his wife and kids to Des Moines for the duration.

Had he communicated with Iowa voters by You Tube, maybe -- just maybe -- he would have kept everyone's nose in joint back home in Connecticut. And it's hard to imagine the outcome being any different, since Dodd earned one out of about 2,500 delegates to the Iowa state convention, based on the caucus voting.