I think his namecalling has mostly been a reaction to the fact that any blowhard can be taken seriously nowadays if they're loud enough. Ann Coulter has made millions by being a frigid, scary cunt and O'Reilly is a "speak first, think later" type of guy. He goes for the easy one-liner and then spends an hour trying to make sense of what he just said. Franken is a less-involved parody of those type of people; less satirical and tongue-in-cheek than Colbert or Stewart, but it's effective.

I'm pretty sure he's running for Senate and not governor though. Either way, it's obvious from the way he writes and speaks that he cares deeply for the state he's from, and he's been involved in Minnesota politics for quite a while.