Lori Sturdevant: Candidates and their little houses of hope

"Get to know 'em," the best-ever Minnesota Twins promotional slogan of a few years back, is my nominee for this year's State Fair politics theme.

Seldom have so many candidates for a major office -- in this case, U.S. Senate -- pinned their electoral hopes on the campaigning that can be done under a tiny plywood or plastic roof, along what for 12 days are the busiest pedestrian pathways in Minnesota. The fair offers candidates the year's best opportunity for low-cost, high-volume retail campaigning. Even on slow days, six-figure crowds of curious potential voters go snacking and strolling by.

Seldom, I'd venture, have so many of those fairgoers come upon these little houses of hope and asked, "Who?"

This fair's roster of little-knowns includes one DFL primary challenger, Priscilla Lord Faris. But it's dominated by members of the Independence Party's gang of seven Senate wannabes.

You read right -- seven. What does that say about an outfit whose gubernatorial candidate garnered less than 7 percent of the vote in the last election? That they're almost laughably disorganized, for one thing. Less laughable for the two big parties: The IP is still kicking, getting noticed and capable of being a spoiler for somebody in November.

Five of the seven have been at the fair. Two use the party's booth, perhaps for the good strategic reason that it's next door to a cheese-curd stand.

Steve Williams, an Austin farmer and excellent nature photographer, has the IP's endorsement, which means he could give other candidates the boot. Instead, said IP fair coordinator Ron Lischeid, he's granted Minneapolis attorney Kurt Michael Anderson some booth time, too.

Three IPers have their own booths, of varying size and sturdiness. I worried about Darryl Stanton on Wednesday when strong rains came through. The Eden Prairie businessman holds forth under a flimsy awning. But Stanton is an athletic, upbeat fellow, eager to talk about education and the economy. He likely doesn't let a little weather bother him.

The better-known IP candidates are on the fairgrounds' north side. Dean Barkley, an early-and-often adviser to former Gov. Jesse Ventura, is trying to conjure the old Ventura State Fair magic with a brochure designed much like one Ventura used in 1998. Former Gov. The Body might make a personal appearance at his booth this weekend, Barkley hinted.

Barkley is making much of the 62 days he served in the Senate in 2002. (Witness his Web address, www.senatorbarkley.com.) Ventura appointed him to complete the late Paul Wellstone's term. Barkley can be credited with some adroit maneuvering while in Washington that netted more federal welfare money for Minnesota.

That record stands to serve Barkley well if he makes it to the general election. But to the few thousand voters likely to cast IP ballots on Sept. 9, the other guy with a booth, Jack Uldrich, ought to look at least as good.

When Barkley ran the Office of Strategy and Long-Range Planning for Ventura, Uldrich was his deputy. He was the policy thinker of the operation, the one whom journalists would call when they needed to go deep on a subject like alternative-energy development or how the Internet would transform government. He also cared enough about turning the Ventura movement into a political party to chair the IP for three years.

Uldrich set out to run an Internet-based campaign (check out www.dotheimpossible08.com). His online video spots are among the most clever seen so far this season.

But, he said, a few days at the State Fair have him convinced that campaigns for public office shouldn't be run on bytes alone. It's good to sit in the shade of a homemade booth and hear about agricultural policy from a dairy farmer, peak oil from an energy researcher or prostitution from a survivor. It's good for a candidate to look into the eyes of the people he would represent and let them look into his, while the carousel calliope plays on.