Back in June, Al Franken took the time to sit down for an interview with MyDD to talk about his campaign for the Democratic senatorial nomination in Minnesota, and one of the interchanges between he and I went something like this.

Singer: What's the message that you'd like to send to the progressive blogosphere, if there's one? Is there something you'd like to hammer home to the netroots today?

Franken: I'm one of you.

Franken has clearly done a very good job raising money around the country, including among his friends in the entertainment industry. During the second quarter, in fact, Franken managed to outraise incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman and is currently sitting on a pot of cash of close to $2 million. (Fellow Democrat Mike Ciresi raised a hefty amount as well, though a bit less, bringing in $750,000.)

But of the $1.9 million Franken raised during the second quarter, a significant portion came from online donations -- $277,000, or 15 percent of his overall haul. While these numbers should not be conflated with netroots support, per se, or be read as a particular endorsement of the online community, they do represent a significant online fundraising success, one along the likes of Tom Allen's better than $300,000 in online contributions this quarter.

There's still a lot of time between now and when Minnesota Democrats choose their senatorial nominee. But if Franken can keep up with numbers like these, both online and off, he's going to be a very formidable contender.