2008 US Senate race

The Independence Party has no US Senate candidate at this point and all indications are a serious candidate would let it be known they intend to run at this point. As the days go by the chances of a Tim Penny or Jim Gibson run are heading towards 0. For that matter Robert Fitzgerald was well on his way by this point in the last cycle.


James McBroom commented that the party informed him they do not intend to endorse anyone. Of course it's up to the delegates and not the top of the party to make that decision, and although party leadership has great influence over most if we have halfway decent representatives of the parties principles filing and asking for the endorsement chances are the delegates will want a dog in the fight especially since they can simply win the primary or worse yet a decent candidate could be beat by a horrifying candidate because no endorsement was made to help guide the primary voter. 6 candidates at some point sought out the Independence Party endorsement in 06, with another candidate popping up to run in the primary. Of those 4 would have been able to represent the party very well, and only one would do things that would damage the party. I don't know anything about the late primary Challenger, but unless we as delegates are certain nobody will file chances are someone will make the sacrifice and fill that line on the ballot even if it is made clear the party see's no reason to go out of their way to help them and 5% might be a long shot.

Of course a Bloomberg presidential run may bring with it someone credible, but if those folks exist I have a hard time imagining the Independence Party would not already know about it. If the party does sit this race out it will be seen as a big indicator of where the Minnesota Independence Party is no matter what happens with Bloomberg. Now if Bloomberg runs and we have candidates in upwards of 50% of state house races it will be a different story but this is not a race you can simply ignore as it will make it that much harder to get candidates motivated at the lower levels.

At this point I would have to say a Tim Penny US Senate run is at about 1%, a Tammy Lee run is less then 1%, and a Jim Gibson run is no greater then 10% still I'm not ready to say it would be imposible for an Independence party endorsed candidate to exceed 5%.