“I consider myself a political revolutionary, and therefore, I am one of you! I created the Independence Party in MN, and I have a plan,” Barkley wrote. “If enough tea partiers join the Independence Party, it becomes you! Think of it. YOU run the Independence Party, not the other way around! With all of the legal and political infrastructure elements it has. This will save lots of time and trouble.”

In a shift from the party’s more progressive background, the Independence Party has already garnered the support of a number of former Republicans running for governor, including Tom Horner and, until recently, Col. Joe Repya.

Barkley was a founder of the Reform Party, which later became the Independence Party. He was appointed by Ventura to fill the seat of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone in 2002.

Here’s Barkley’s full statement:

Dear Fellow Patriots!

Do you want the conservative movement to create real change? Then it must take the next step. Only by electing decent people who believe as you do, can our nation transform itself.

Hello, my name is Dean Barkley. I have spent the last twenty years trying to change the ways things are done by our corrupt two party system. I began by forming the Reform Party in Minnesota. Later, we changed the name to the Independence Party, ran candidates, and eventually elected Jesse Ventura as the most widely known governor in America. Like you, the traditional political parties hated us. I just ran for the US Senate, and received 15% of the vote – with no money! The point it: change can happen!

People nationwide understand how bankrupt the two party system is (and has bankrupted America, too!). To be effective, this movement must transform into being a real political force and fast. To do so, it must create the legal, financial, and staffing infrastructure that a real political party has. The Republican Party is trying to lure some of you into its folds with pretty promises. But don’t be fooled. They just want your time, money, and votes. And they will continue business as usual – and run things their way!

I consider myself a political revolutionary, and therefore, I am one of you! I created the Independence Party in MN, and I have a plan. If enough tea partiers join the Independence Party, it becomes you! Think of it. YOU run the Independence Party, not the other way around! With all of the legal and political infrastructure elements it has. This will save lots of time and trouble. The scattered tea party people become The Tea Party – in name as well as fact. A real party – that can change things. You can do this in two weeks. Register online at MNIP.org. If three hundred do, and become delegates, they will own the Independence Party. They can change its name to Tea Party – and inherit all the party structure you need! Register to be a delegate. You can do it online. But hurry, the online caucus closes on 2/28/2010.

Let’s get back to the future and back to the United States Constitution, limited government, and the fiscal common sense of living within our means.

Sincerely,

Dean Barkley

“Lou Dobbs, I think, would be a perfect candidate for us,” said Barkley, the onetime senator who founded the Reform Party (now known as the Independence Party). “We were hoping he would have run last time.”

Anything could happen, as Barkley’s experience managing Jesse Ventura’s 1998 campaign attests. Also interviewed for the Politico piece: Ad guy Bill Hillsman, who lead communications efforts behind successful outsider campaigns by Ventura and the late Sen. Paul Wellstone. But Politico says neither Hillsman nor other “leading third-party operatives” have been contacted by Dobbs’ people — yet.

(Hat tip: David Brauer on Twitter.)

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

STATEWIDE: That’s our gal. The proportion of voters who don’t approve of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann is greater in her own district than statewide … so she should run against U.S. Sen. Al Franken in 2014. [Smart Politics]

MINNEAPOLIS: People who voted like instant-runoff voting. Somehow pollsters found 504 of them to ask. [Minnesota Public Radio]

STATE CAPITOL: State IT pros support Gov. Pawlenty. An audit says the guy who online outdoorsmen call a “slob hunter” didn’t track his office’s computer-support expenses either. [Associated Press; Star Tribune]

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: U2 at TCF in June. Bono will talk to Bill Cooper about debt relief. [Star Tribune; City Pages]

MAPLEWOOD: Al Franken visits City Hall. It’s safe to go to Maplewood again. On a Sunday, anyway. [John Nephew]

ST. PAUL: Heckuva job, Goldie. The feds say the Gopher State did good after I-35W fell down. [Minnesota Public Radio]

Photo: MnIndy

Former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman was once a daily news staple but has largely fallen into civilian obscurity since bowing out of his recount battle with now-Sen. Al Franken. Now he’s back in the news and the blogs, and for reasons other than his health or gubernatorial ambitions.  

Coleman is, naturally, a central player in the St. Paul Pioneer Press’ series of stories looking back at the Coleman-Franken fracas.

Coleman also reportedly sent out an email in support of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann that seemingly takes a GPS approach to gay-baiting (Manhattan, Vermont and San Francisco, oh my!).

And his name gets invoked in a mudfest between rightwing bloggers David Frum and David Horowitz over whether Glenn Beck is an albatross for the GOP. (By the way, it turns out Coleman lost to Franken because of Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley.)

The most obvious dark-horse challenger is the Independence Party. Ever since Jesse Ventura blew up the political conventional wisdom by winning the gubernatorial contest in 1998, the IP has been a formidable factor every four years.

Former U.S. Rep Tim Penny

In 2002, former U.S. Rep. Tim Penny brought broad name recognition and moderate policy credentials to the contest. He ultimately pulled just 16 percent of the vote, but was likely hurt by heightened partisanship in the wake of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone’s death.

“The final week of that campaign everything changed,” recalls Penny, now president of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation. “I went from being as likely a victor as the other two to being the odd man out in just a number of days.”

Four years later the IP endorsed Peter Hutchinson, a former state finance commissioner, foundation executive and deputy mayor of Minneapolis. But his broad resume didn’t ultimately hold much sway with voters: He managed just six percent of the vote.

Despite these declining fortunes, the IP has retained its major party status, meaning it’s guaranteed a spot on the ballot. So who else might be looking at the party’s endorsement for 2010?

Penny says he’s not interested, noting that foundation work and other endeavors keep him plenty busy. But he’s optimistic that the IP will run a credible candidate.

“Every year there’s a path for an independent candidate to get from the starting gate to the winner’s circle,” he says. “I think there’s a path this year given the fact that it’s going to be wide open.”

Another perennial contender, Dean Barkley (pictured), isn’t ruling anything out. Outside of Ventura, Barkley has been the most visible face of the IP over the last two decades. Most recently, he siphoned off 15 percent of the vote in the (still ongoing) U.S. Senate bloodbath between Norm Coleman and Al Franken.

“I have some mild interest in it,” Barkley says. “I wouldn’t call it a great deal of interest, but I’m at least looking at it.”

In other words: Barkley will fall on his sword and run again if no other credible candidate emerges. The IP is currently in the process of gauging interest among other potential challengers.

Rep. Jim Ramstad. Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke, WDCpix

Heading up that effort is Jack Uldrich, the party’s chairman. Among the folks he’s contacted about the contest: former U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad (pictured), Metropolitan Council Chair Peter Bell and Minnesota Chamber of Commerce President David Olson. Uldrich argues that the decision of Gov. Tim Pawlenty not to seek a third term provides an opportunity for the IP to become a larger factor in the contest.

“He was difficult for both Peter Hutchinson and Tim Penny to run against because he appears more moderate than he actually is,” Uldrich says. “That will make it easier for us.

Uldrich further argues that the potential of wealthy Democratic candidates (i.e. Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza) to bypass the endorsement process and run in a contested primary could provide a further opening for third-party candidates. “They’re going to have really a bloodbath on that side,” he says. “They’re going to go to a primary and they’re going to come out of that pretty weak.”

While the IP is almost certain to be a factor in the 2010 gubernatorial contest, other third parties will have to scrap mightily for any electoral clout. The Green Party of Minnesota previously was accorded major party status, but lost that pedigree after failing to garner five percent of the vote in any of the statewide contests in 2006. Even with guaranteed ballot access the Greens have never won more than two percent of the vote in a governor’s race.

According to Cam Gordon, a Minneapolis City Council member and Green Party activist, the party has formed a committee to explore options for 2010. But so far no candidates have indicated that they’ll be seeking the party’s endorsement and the Greens are likely to focus on local contests.

“I’m feeling somewhat hopeful,” says Gordon of the party’s overall prospects in 2010. “But I think it’s been a hard time for the Greens the last few years. It will really be a turning point for us if we can get somebody elected to the state House.”

At least one candidate will be running as a Green — but has no intention of seeking the party’s official backing. Richard Klatte says he grew tired of the party’s disorganization and lack of candidate recruitment strategies.

“I’ve gone to the meetings and they’ve totally ignored me and my ideas,” says Klatte, who hosts a cable-access program called Third Party Forum and has made unsuccessful runs for office several times previously. “It’s a waste of time.”

Further undermining the Green Party’s prospects are the plans of Ken Pentel (pictured). The environmental activist was the party’s official nominee in both 2002 and 2006. But Pentel has split ties with the Greens and is in the early stages of building his own political organization called the Ecology Democracy Network.

Pentel has been traveling the state by bicycle and recruiting supporters for the fledgling coalition, with roughly 150 people currently in the fold. The organization will advocate for radical changes to economic, agricultural and electoral policies in order to avert what he believes is looming environmental devastation.

“There is no political party, there is no political movement that is literally dealing with this,” he says. “Everybody’s scared. We sit around on our hands rationalizing it.”

Pentel expects to develop a political party sometime this fall and hopes to have 100 candidates running in the 2010 elections, with himself at the top of the ticket. The break with the Greens comes after mounting frustration at the party’s lack of electoral success.

“The people who got into the decision-making positions were not that interested in building a political party to power,” argues Pentel. “They didn’t want to develop candidates, recruit candidate and get on the ballot line.”

While Pentel’s political organization is still in its embryonic stages, at least one 2010 hopeful is eschewing party politics all together. Chris Wright registered with the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board in December to run for governor. He’s a computer technician and former activist with the (now defunct) Grassroots Party, which focused primarily on marijuana legalization.

“What I really wanted to do is raise some issues that are simply not being raised by either of the two major parties,” says Wright, citing energy independence and drug legalization. “The only ones who make money on the prohibition of narcotics are the cops and the gangs. Let’s stop doing this.”

Of course, Wright will undoubtedly find it extremely difficult to get these opinions heard without the backing of a political party — major or minor. His previous run for Governor, in 1998, doesn’t inspire confidence in his prospects: he garnered 1,727 votes, or .1 percent of all votes cast.

Coleman’s attorneys immediately announced, however, that he would be appealing the decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The former senator then jetted off to Washington to reassure supporters that he wasn’t giving up the fight.

But by continuing to drag out the election contest — therefore ensuring that Minnesota is represented by just one senator — Coleman might hurt his own future political prospects if he presses the case much farther.

Former Senator Dave Durenberger, a Republican and Coleman supporter, believes that the most serious damage to Coleman’s political future occurred during the nasty, extraordinarily expensive campaign, rather than the aftermath.

“The reason I think that people are patient is that a lot of people got to the point where they don’t give a damn,” he notes. “It was such a horrible campaign. That’s the challenge that Norm faces. It makes it difficult to get back to remembering how good Norm was at a lot of things, as a mayor and as a senator.”

John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has suggested that the senate contest could take “years,” a prospect that the Republican leadership seems perfectly happy to live with considering that it keeps the Democrats stalled at 58 seats. But Durenberger doesn’t think the Republican leadership has Coleman’s best interests in mind.

“They could care less about Norm Coleman,” he says. “They’ll talk about Norm: ‘We loved him. He was such a terrific blah blah blah.’ But — and it’s hard to says this — this is not the same Republican caucus that was there when I served. If Norm had to finance this recount on his own, he never could have gone through it. Norm couldn’t afford to put a nickel into this thing, but John Cornyn could.”

Dean Barkley, who attracted 15 percent of the vote as the Independence Party candidate in the U.S. Senate race, figures the public is willing to give Coleman the benefit of the doubt — for now.

“It’s his right to pursue this,” says Barkley. “I think if he pushes it beyond the state Supreme Court he might start getting some pretty serious damage.”

Hamline University political science professor David Schultz agrees that Coleman’s currently at a tipping point with the general public. “I get the sense in the last two to three weeks that the support has dramatically eroded,” he says.

Schultz believes Coleman would best preserve his own future political prospects by conceding defeat if the three-judge panel rules in Franken’s favor.

“I think at that point the public’s like, ‘Okay, you had your one shot at the court,’” he says. “As soon as he files the appeal, whatever remaining support I think he has is completely eroded.”

But Schultz argues that at this point Coleman is too beholden to the Republican leadership to act in his own best political interests.

“For the Republicans a vacant seat is just as good at this point as having Coleman in office,” he says. “The longer they can keep this seat vacant, the longer they can keep the Democrats from getting to number 59. I’m not even sure if Coleman is in complete control of his destiny at this point. I think they’re pretty much dictating the terms of the legal strategy at this point.”

Of course, given Coleman’s well-publicized financial troubles, the goal may no longer be political victory, but rather (as suggested by this story at Huffington Post) a plush job on K Street. If that’s indeed the case, then Coleman most certainly will explore every legal avenue imaginable.

Franken’s team was trying to show that Gelbmann — who ran a statewide U.S. Senate campaign for Democrat Mark Dayton and then ran his local office after his election —  could conduct his duties without partisanship.

Acknowledging his feelings towards Franken and Coleman in open court seems like it would have helped make that argument. Gelbmann told the South Washington County Bullentin in a Jan. 22 article:

I was disgusted with the campaigns by both candidates. I couldn’t stomach the negative ads, which were way out for Minnesota standards.

Smaller newspapers are turning up intriguing bits to some of the second-tier stars of the Minnesota Senate election drama. Yesterday another suburban newspaper carried a profile of Coleman attorney Fritz Knaak in which he made (passing) reference to a (conjectural) Coleman concession and offered other insights into the Republican’s legal squadron.

Updated number-crunching after the jump.

Favorable and unfavorable opinions of Al Franken and Norm Coleman

in the Kos poll, 49 percent say they have a favorable opinion of Franken — 4 percent more than those with an unfavorable opinion. A favorable opinion of Norm Coleman is harder to find, being shared by only 41 percent of respondents. But what’s really stunning is Coleman’s negative number: 58 percent say they have unfavorable opinion of him.

Those results are markedly different from the other poll, in which both men’s approval percentages were below 40 percent but neither had unfavorable opinion rates above 45 percent. Variations in polling may explain some of the difference: the KSTP poll allows both “Neutral” and “No Opinion” responses, while Kos only allows “No Opinion.”  In the KSTP poll the two answer categories comprise a full 19 percent of the Coleman responses, but in the Kos poll only 1 percent have no opinion of Coleman.

Polls differ in respondents’ party affiliations

But the most significant difference between the two polls is in the distribution by party affiliation subgroups within their sample populations. In conducting the survey for the left-leaning Daily Kos, Research 2000 included far fewer (27 percent) voters who called themselves politically independent or “other,” and more who identify as Republican (33 percent) or Democrat (40 percent). SurveyUSA, whose polls generally and for KSTP-TV specifically have sometimes been accused of skewing right politically, included only 25 percent Republican and 33 percent Democratic voters — with a whopping 39 percent “independent.”

Perceived fairness of recount process

Sampling differences appear to play out in a question that both polls asked: Was the recount process fair, and if not, to which candidate was it unfair? The Research 2000-Daily Kos results show 63 percent think the recount was fair to both candidates, with only 17 percent finding the process “mostly unfair” to Coleman and 12 percent, unfair to Franken. In SurveyUSA’s poll, 31 percent saw the recount as unfair to Coleman, 3 percent unfair to Franken, and 56 percent fair to both.

Things really got squirrelly within the subgroups of each poll. The more heavily weighted SurveyUSA “independent” subgroup was twice as likely (28 percent) to see unfairness toward Coleman as their Recount 2000-Kos counterparts (14 percent). The dominant Democrats in the Recount 2000-Kos poll managed to find unfairness toward Franken in greater numbers (18 percent, compared to 5 percent in SurveyUSA’s). And SurveyUSA’s relatively scant pool of Republicans was far more inclined (68 percent) to see injury to the Republican candidate than those in equivalent subgroup of the Kos poll (32 percent). In fact, a majority of Kos’ Republicans (54 percent) saw the recount as fair to both candidates, a view shared by only 23 percent in SurveyUSA’s Republican pool.

Coleman court challenge

Both polls measured support for Coleman’s contesting of the recount results in court. The Daily Kos poll found 47 percent opposed and 34 percent in favor, with 19 percent not sure. SurveyUSA had 42 percent in favor and 49 percent opposed — a figure interpreted in news reports as meaning half of Minnesotans want Coleman to concede. SurveyUSA did ask flat out whether Coleman should concede, as the first of three supplied answers (all unlikely) to the question “What do you think should happen next?” Forty-four percent thought Coleman should quit; the other options were “Do the re-count again” (8 percent) and “Hold another Senate election altogether” (31 percent).

Who won, and who would you vote for today?

“Who do you think won the U.S. Senate race, Al Franken or Norm Coleman?” The response to that Research 2000-Kos question is: Franken, 46 percent; Coleman, 41 percent; and “Not Sure,” 13 percent.

It’s intriguing to compare that with the results on another Kos question: “If you could vote again for U.S. Senate would you vote for Al Franken the Democrat, Norm Coleman the Republican, or Dean Barkley, an Independent?” (Barkley should actually be termed not as “an Independent” but as “the candidate of the Independence Party” — a third party with major-party status in Minnesota.) Overall, 43 percent would vote for Franken, 40 percent for Coleman, and 15 percent for Barkley. An element of softness in Democratic voter support for Franken widely observed on Election Day is still perceptible: 83 percent of Democrats polled think Franken won, but only 77 percent would vote for him today.

It’s also intriguing to compare the Kos poll’s election re-run with another SurveyUSA-KSTP poll taken Dec. 7, which also asked, if the election were held again today, “who would you vote for?” The results then were much closer to the Election Day results: Coleman, 41 percent; Franken, 40 percent; Barkley 15 percent.

Margin of error

The Research 2000-Daily Kos poll surveyed 600 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The SurveyUSA-KSTP poll surveyed 500 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. The margin of error increases at the level of subgroups such as party identification.

Does any of this matter?

Minnesota’s Senate election remains unresolved. So are the polls taken since Nov. 4 really election polls? The crosstabs by gender, age and party affiliation and the questions the polls ask combine to conjure up the feeling of a late-campaign pulse-reading of the electorate, a tantalizing forecast of the coming result. Except, of course, those polled have already voted in this race and aren’t likely to vote again. The shifting opinions among the subgroups can matter only as much as they affect the outlooks of three judges, yet to be named, who will decide Coleman’s court challenge. And perhaps 98 or 99 U.S. senators who have the last word on who is seated and who as politicians are used to putting stock in polls.

The Barkley precedent stirs up unresolved questions about Minnesota’s ongoing Senate recount: Which major-party candidate will end up benefiting from Barkley’s third-party Senate run this year? And would Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty follow Blago’s example and fill a vacancy in Minnesota’s Senate contingent? And will the Senate be as willing to seat Burris or a Pawlenty pick as it was with Barkley eight years ago?

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura appointed Barkley, a fellow Independence Party stalwart, to fill out the remaining weeks of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone’s term after his death just days before the 2002 election. Barkley was a third-party candidate for the office this year, drawing enough support (15 percent) to affect the result. But it’s still unclear whether Coleman or his Democratic rival Al Franken will be the ultimate electoral beneficiary of Barkley’s participation.

Meanwhile, Pawlenty has downplayed the likelihood that he’d exercise his option to fill a vacancy in the Wellstone/Barkley/Coleman seat. While the embattled Blagojevich may have little to lose, Pawlenty is busy parlaying his national stature as an also-ran for the GOP vice-presidential nomination into short-list status for the party’s presidential pick in 2012. That likely makes the political cost of any appointment to fill a Minnesota Senate vacancy untenable for T-Paw.

There’s also the question of the willingness of the U.S. Senate to seat either Burris or a Pawlenty appointee to the Minnesota Senate seat. The senators themselves hold the constitutional wild card in the process voters started Nov. 4 when they tried to choose a senator, and Majority Leader Harry Reid has already signaled opposition to seating Burris.

But a rerun of the Nov. 4 election, if held today, wouldn’t be any more conclusive than the original was, according to a new poll that Survey USA conducted for KSTP-TV. If Minnesotans could vote again, the results would be just about the same as on Election Day, with Coleman at 42 percent and Franken at 41.

There’s apparently no “give” yet among supporters of either candidate — or indeed, among those who backed the third-place finisher, Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley. Given the chance in the hypothetical do-over to tip the historically close election to either Franken or Coleman, 15 percent of voters would stick by Barkley, who briefly held the same Senate seat in 2002 as Gov. Jesse Ventura’s appointee after Paul Wellstone’s death.

Responses to other questions that KSTP reported suggest that Minnesotans find the recount process fair, approve of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s handling of it, don’t want the loser to sue, and do want rejected absentee ballots reviewed.

Here are the results of the KSTP-TV/Survey USA survey questions presented by KSTP on Dec. 7:

Do you think Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount process has been fair to both candidates? Unfair to Norm Coleman? Or Unfair to Al Franken?
Fair to both candidates: 58 percent
Unfair to Coleman: 20 percent
Unfair to Franken: 13 percent
Not sure: 9 percent

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has done with the recount?
Approve: 61 percent
Disapprove: 26 percent
Not sure: 13 percent

Do you think the losing candidate should file a legal challenge in court if they think the process was unfair?
Yes: 40 percent
No: 55 percent
Not sure: 4 percent

Do you think absentee ballots that were previously rejected should be reviewed?
Yes: 58 percent
No: 39 percent
Not sure: 4 percent

If another election for U.S. Senate was held again today who would you vote for? Dean Barkley? Norm Coleman? Or Al Franken?
Coleman: 41 percent
Franken: 40 percent
Barkley: 15 percent

In the latest official recount tally of results from the Nov. 4 election (not including 6,655 ballots that either the Franken or Coleman campaigns have challenged), Franken and Coleman are essentially tied at 41 percent, with 17 percent of the vote going to all others (including Barkley).

The poll’s sampling margin of error is ±4.2 percent. It was conducted on Dec. 4, just before the recount finished (most of) its work and just as news was breaking about 133 ballots being lost in Minneapolis. The Survey USA crosstabs include three questions KSTP didn’t include in its report:

Do you approve or disapprove of how the Coleman campaign has handled the recount process?
Approve: 51 percent
Disapprove: 40 percent
Not sure: 9 percent

Do you approve or disapprove of how the Franken campaign has handled the recount process?
Approve: 44 percent
Disapprove: 48 percent
Not sure: 7 percent

In light of the Senate recount process, do you now have more faith in Minnesota’s electoral system? Less faith? Or about the same amount?
More faith: 11 percent
Less faith: 32 percent
Same amount: 53 percent
Not sure: 4 percent

Survey USA’s crosstabs indicate that the results are based on the opinions of 556 registered Minnesota voters. The breakdowns by political party affiliation are surprising, given the sometime right-heavy pools Survey USA has been accused of using: 41 percent Democrat, 27 percent Republican, and 28 percent “Independent” (that’s small “i”-Independent, not necessarily affiliated with the Independence Party).

As Georgia’s U.S. Senate recent run-off experience showed, turnout for special election isn’t the same as for general elections. Did Survey USA target Minnesotans who would be likely to vote if indeed another election is held in this race? “We did not screen for likely voters at any point,” writes Ken Alper of Survey USA in response to an e-mail this morning from the Minnesota Independent.

Here is KSTP’s report: