Dean Barkley

Dean Malcolm Barkley is an American attorney and politician who briefly served as a United States Senator from Minnesota from 2002 to 2003. A founder and chair of the Minnesota Reform Party, he chaired Jesse Ventura's successful 1998 gubernatorial campaign. Ventura subsequently appointed him director of the state's Office of Strategic and Long Range Planning, and appointed Barkley to the U.S. Senate after the death of Paul Wellstone. Barkley ran as the Independence Party's candidate for the Senate in 2008, finishing third as Democrat Al Franken defeated Republican incumbent Norm Coleman by 312 votes.