Dean Barkley

Dean Malcolm Barkley (born August 31, 1950) is an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Minnesota from 2002 to 2003 as a member of the Independence Party of Minnesota. The founder and chair of the Minnesota Reform Party (later renamed the Independence Party), he chaired Jesse Ventura's campaign for governor of Minnesota in 1998. Ventura subsequently appointed him director of the state's Office of Strategic and Long Range Planning. After Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash just weeks before the 2002 election, Ventura appointed Barkley to fill Wellstone's Senate seat. His brief tenure ended when Republican Norm Coleman was elected and sworn in.

Barkley has run for office four times. Inspired by Ross Perot's 1992 presidential campaign, he first ran for Congress as an independent in that year's election in Minnesota's 6th congressional district. He ran three times for the U.S. Senate: in Minnesota's 1994 Senate election, in 1996, and in 2008. He received 5%, 7%, and 15% of the vote in those elections, respectively.