* SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
Independent Jolts Minnesota Senate Race
By BRAD HAYNES
The late entry of a third-party candidate has upended the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, suggesting voter dissatisfaction with the state's two top candidates, as well as shaking Democrats' hopes of adding the seat to their Senate majority. Dean Barkley, founder of the Minnesota Independence Party, stole the political spotlight in 1998, when he masterminded former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura's successful bid to unseat
then-Gov. Norm Coleman. (Huh??) Now Mr. Coleman is a first-term Republican senator with slumping approval ratings, and Mr. Barkley is after him again, having announced in July that he will run for the Senate seat.
Polls show Mr. Barkley with as much as 14% support among likely voters, and his candidacy is cutting into the support of Sen. Coleman and Democrat Al Franken, a former humorist and radio host. The two major-party candidates have been waging one of the country's most aggressive and expensive Senate races. "Voters are sick of the nasty ads," said Mr. Barkley. "In a two-person race you can probably get away with it, but with a third viable alternative, there's a place to go. If you don't like what you're seeing, you don't have to put up with it."
Coleman spokesman Mark Drake said he had expected Mr. Barkley's strong polling after Mr. Franken received only two-thirds of Democratic votes in the primary. "Dean Barkley is benefiting from Democrats fleeing Al Franken in droves," he said. But Mr. Franken's spokeswoman Colleen Murray pointed out that Mr. Barkley is drawing support from both Democrats and Republicans. "These polls are proof of a growing consensus for change," she said. "At the end of the day, we're confident that those change votes will go to Al Franken."
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Mr. Barkley draws voters from both parties, but many observers see his candidacy as more threatening to Mr. Franken, who has struggled to consolidate Democratic support. "He is competing with Franken for the angry voter who disapproves of Bush and sees the country as off on the wrong track," pollster Larry Jacobs, a professor at the University of Minnesota, said after early polling... Mr. Barkley's emphasis on reducing the national debt may appeal to fiscal conservatives, but his opposition to the Iraq war and support of gay rights appeal to liberal voters. He says he is more than a spoiler, though, and points out that he is ahead of where Mr. Ventura was polling in the gubernatorial campaign 10 years ago.
(snip)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122204643394361665.html (subscription, maybe)
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