In this week’s audiocast, Minnesota politics analyst and Hamline University prof David Schultz reviews a flurry of recent developments in the Minnesota US Senate race — Jesse Ventura’s five minutes back in the spotlight; Al Franken’s new Democratic primary challenger, Priscilla Lord Faris; likely Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley; and a pair of diametrically opposed new polls — and examines Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to Europe and the Middle East.

"It’s interesting how Jesse Ventura decided to flirt with the media," Schultz notes, "almost in a sense trying to get even with them again. He hates the local media, and he got them all hot and bothered about running for the US Senate, and then at the last minute saying he was going to take his bat and ball and go home. On one level, it looks like another effort to stick it to the media.

"He eventually said his decision not to run was based on conversations with his family. Now I think that’s perfectly legitimate. But Jesse had been flirting with a Senate run for a few weeks. One would have thought that before launching that public flirtation, he’d talk with his family first. What was really more interesting was the particular aspects of the family issue he raised. He said he didn’t want to run because his daughter was concerned that the media would put the family through the same thing they went through when the media covered his son a few years ago when [Ventura[ was governor. If you recall, that story involved his son basically trashing the governor's mansion on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. I think they were doing some joints there. And while probably no one cares on one level if anyone wants to do a couple of joints in their own house, or trash the place, this was done on public property.

"And he was still upset about that story. And it showed me that he hasn't grown up. He hasn't learned to move beyond a story that's six years old at this point. It kind of struck me -- I hate to say it -- as immature or babyish in terms of how the media covered him."

One of the stories buried by Ventura drama on Monday was the entry of local attorney Priscilla Lord Faris, the daughter of retired federal judge Miles Lord. "The Democratic challenge speaks to the underlying unease that many Democrats have with Franken and his inability to gain a lead in the polls against Coleman," says Schultz. "Her entering the race is probably not going to dislodge Franken, but it does provide Democrats some opportunity for a protest vote. More importantly, it probably makes Coleman jump up and down, because now Franken has to worry about a challenger in the next two months instead of focusing solely on Coleman.

Regarding the Independence Party, which found itself still lacking for a Senate candidate after Ventura's announcement, Schultz says the pressure is squarely on Dean Barkley now to enter the race for reasons of party standing: "Barkley has to make a decision by 5 on Tuesday. In part, the Independence Party is under some pressure to have a candidate [in the US Senate race], because they need to have 5 percent in election returns to keep their major-party status [in Minnesota]. So Barkley may be resorting to the role he played in the 1990s, when he ran to get the party its 5 percent without major prospects of actually winning. While he’s in many ways a more serious candidate than Ventura–the brains behind The Body–he clearly doesn’t have the name recognition or the media star power that Ventura had. Where he might become a problem in this race is by drawing a few percentage points of the vote–I would argue, more from Franken at this point than Coleman."

Listen: David Schultz on the Coleman/Franken race and Barack Obama’s upcoming European trip (14:34)

Photo montage via Flickr.