The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reports, “It appears that former Minnesota Sen. Dean Barkley (I) has a chance to get elected to the Senate on the Independence Party ticket in November — or at least drastically affect the results of one of the most hotly contested races in the country. Two recent polls have shown Barkley edging close to 20 percent of the vote, but it’s unclear whether he is taking more votes away from Sen. Norm Coleman (R) or comedian Al Franken (D). What’s more, the man appointed by former Gov. Jesse Ventura (I) to serve out the remainder of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone’s (D) term in the last few weeks of 2002 and engineered Ventura’s improbable victory in 1998 is boasting that he has higher survey numbers than his former boss polled before he won his gubernatorial bid.”

Minnesota Daily says Barkley “will speak Wednesday afternoon in the first of a series of Senate candidate forums hosted by the University of Minnesota’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance” on the “polarization of our political parties.”