Independence Party says the time is right — but can't find a candidate
By Bill Salisbury, Pioneer Press
Updated: 11/04/2009
While a large pack of Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates has roamed across Minnesota for months clamoring for attention, the state's third and smallest "major party," the Independence Party, has yet to field a single credible contender.
State party chairman Jack Uldrich insists he isn't worried about not having a candidate yet. It's still early, and he has been talking to a "handful of eminently qualified individuals" who would be strong candidates, he said in an interview last week.
Uldrich is confident that one or more of what he considers "three leading candidates" will get into the race.
He declined to name them but said all three work in private business and have experience either "in government at the highest levels or in public policy circles."
They also "have resources of their own" — money, that is — to wage a competitive race, he said. That's important because the Independence Party never has had much money.
"I am 100 percent confident that we will have a very qualified candidate," Uldrich said.
In addition, Dean Barkley, the party's U.S. Senate candidate in 2008 and former Gov. Jesse Ventura's closest political adviser, said he is considering a run for governor.
"I am contemplating whether I want to strap on the knee pads one more time and start begging people to give me money," Barkley said. "I really don't like doing that. I've got to convince myself that I've got one more fight left in me, and I haven'tdone that yet."
To be competitive, he said, the Independence Party candidate must raise at least $2 million, enough to air TV ads in the month before the election. He said the party's past two candidates spent about $1 million and ran short of advertising money late in the race.
(Rahn Workcuff, a political unknown from Minneapolis, has filed with the state campaign finance board to run as an Independence Party candidate for governor. He has run for the Legislature at least twice and lost badly.)
Uldrich said he tried to recruit Jim Ramstad, but the popular former GOP congressman said he's "not interested in running at this time."
Whomever the Independence Party nominee is, Uldrich and Barkley agree he or she will have a good shot at winning next year.
Why? "Because people have become completely disgusted with the other two parties," Barkley said. "It's been growing and growing and I think it's at an all-time high now."
Uldrich said the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has become extremely liberal and the Republicans extremely conservative.
"The middle is wide open," he said.
Polls suggest Minnesota voters are becoming more independent. Minneapolis pollster Bill Morris said a statewide survey his firm, Decision Resources, took in late July showed 39 percent of voters identified themselves as Democrats, 33 percent as Republicans and 26 percent as independents. That represented a 4 percent increase for independents since January and a 4 percent decrease for Democrats.
But fewer than 1 percent identified with the Independence Party. Still, Uldrich said, independents are more likely to vote for a candidate on the party's ticket.
One reason the Independence Party, like other parties, may have a hard time recruiting candidates is that the next governor will face a projected $4.4 billion to $7.2 billion budget shortfall and ongoing structural deficits.
"Everyone I talk to (about running) I ask, 'Do you really want this job?' Because it's going to be a crappy job," Uldrich said.
He said the three leading potential candidates "to their credit say, 'I get that. But somebody needs to do it. We need some real leadership.' "
The Independence Party hasn't provided much leadership since its first and only governor, Jesse Ventura, left office in 2002. He was elected with 37 percent of the vote in the three-way 1998 election.
Since then, the party's 2002 gubernatorial candidate, Tim Penny, received 16 percent of the vote and the IP's Peter Hutchinson got 6 percent in 2006 — barely clearing the 5 percent threshold for maintaining "major party" status under Minnesota law.
But Barkley received 15 percent of the votes in the 2008 U.S. Senate race.
Why has the party slipped? Larry Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, cites three reasons.
"It still is basically a cult-of-the-individual party," he said. The Independence Party can succeed when it gets a celebrity, such as Ventura, to run, but it has no elected office holders, no organization with thousands of members and little loyalty among voters.
"The party surfs on voter frustration," Jacobs said. They get attention in the weeks leading up to an election, but "outside of the election period, they're irrelevant." They aren't players in the state's public policy debates or a presence in policymaking at the Legislature.
Finally, the party doesn't have a clear role, he said. "They don't win elections. They raise issues during an election, and they act as a kingmaker by drawing voters away from one party so the other one wins. But that's about it."
Nonetheless, state DFL and GOP leaders don't dismiss the Independence Party.
"I take seriously any party that's elected a governor in the past 20 years," state GOP chairman Tony Sutton said.
How seriously depends on the quality of their candidate, he said. "If they don't have a celebrity candidate, they don't have the infrastructure, apparatus or loyalty of a base to help their candidate build a platform for a campaign."
State DFL chairman Brian Melendez said he takes the Independence Party seriously not because he thinks they can win but because they could be spoilers.
He said he believes the Independence Party cost DFL gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch the 2006 election. Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty beat Hatch by just 1 percentage point, and Melendez is convinced the Independence Party's Hutchinson siphoned off enough disgruntled Democrats to tip the election.
He said he also thinks U.S. Sen. Al Franken would have won in 2008 without a recount if Barkley hadn't run.
"Nobody's really voting for their (Independence Party) candidates; they're voting against the candidates of the two major parties," he said. "It's kind of turned into the None-of- the-Above Party."
Uldrich asserted that the Independence Party, unlike the DFL and GOP, stands for fiscal responsibility and moderation on social issues.
Party leaders learned two lessons from their defeats in 2002 and 2006, he said. Their candidate must launch a campaign earlier.
Uldrich wants the IP candidates to enter the race during the legislative session next spring "so we get engaged in the debate and start drawing distinctions with both the DFLers and the Republicans."
The second lesson, he said, is that they must communicate with voters the way Ventura did. While Penny and Hutchinson were highly qualified candidates, "their messages never resonated with the public," he said. "We have to keep intellectually honest but figure out how to package our message better."
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