U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken quickly dismisses questions about his comments to Playboy magazine in 2000.

And rightly so. That’s because those comments were just humor, a joke, something to make people laugh.

We don’t find his comments humorous in any way, but we do recognize it was his job. He was paid to be funny. The media and people critical of him for making the comments need to move on the real issues. That’s what voters want to hear in the race between Franken and incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman.

President Ronald Reagan, an actor with a sense of humor, made jokes. He once made one about bombing the Soviets. Yet most people recognized humor as humor and on the campaign trail let him talk about the issues. Even former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura could make jokes and people saw them as just humor. Minnesotans like to laugh. They don’t hold jokes, even bad ones like Franken made, over your head.

It remains to be seen whether the better candidate is Coleman or Franken, but, with the U.S. economy in the tank, that will be judged on their visions for the future of this country.