Hasn't ruled out....

Al Franken hasn't ruled out another run for office

By Jamie Ehrlich

Former Democratic Sen. Al Franken said Monday he hasn't ruled out the possibility of running for office again, adding that he misses and loved his job as a US senator representing Minnesota.

"I put my heart in the job," Franken said to TV station WCCO, a CNN affiliate. "I miss the whole job. I loved that job, I loved the job as senator. ... It was very meaningful for me and bittersweet, I would like to still be there."

When asked if he would consider running again, Franken said he didn't know.

"I haven't ruled it out, and I haven't ruled it in," he said Monday.

Franken resigned from his Senate position in early January amid a half dozen allegations by women of inappropriate touching. Dozens of members of the Senate from his own party urged him to resign and though a Senate ethics committee opened an investigation, Franken announced his decision to resign before it could conclude. Franken apologized for some of the behavior he was accused of, though he was defiant in his final Senate floor speech.

"I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office," Franken said in December.

Franken originally forayed in to politics from the land of comedy, where he starred on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" as a writer and occasional performer from its opening years in the 1970s to the 1990s.

Following his resignation, Franken was replaced in the Senate with the appointment of Tina Smith, who is running for re-election to the seat in a special election this fall. CNN rates the race as likely Democrat.