One more hurdle on road to elections

Al Franken may have been endorsed by the DFL for the U.S. Senate, but he faces one more hurdle before he can make it to the November ballot as the party's official challenger to Republican Sen. Norm Coleman: He must beat six other DFLers in Tuesday's primary.

Seven Independence Party candidates also are running in the primary, which will finalize party lineups for the fall campaign in what is expected to be one of the nation's hardest-fought Senate contests.

While endorsed candidates have been upended in some of Minnesota's wilder primaries -- Anyone remember Allen Quist? How about Jerry Janezich? -- the DFL race has so far shown few signs of an upset in the making.

Franken is facing a challenge from St. Paul attorney Priscilla Lord Faris, but she has had neither the time nor the money to compete with his well-funded operation.

Another DFL candidate, Internet radio director Rob Fitzgerald, attracted 71,000 votes in the 2006 U.S. Senate race as the Independence Party candidate but has drawn little attention this year.

Neither Lord Faris nor Fitzgerald entered the race until the last day of candidate filing, in mid-July.

On the other hand, the endorsed candidate of the Independence Party -- Stephen Williams, an Austin sweet-corn farmer -- faces a formidable challenge from two well-known party stalwarts.

Barkley was appointed by Ventura to serve briefly in the U.S. Senate in 2002 after Paul Wellstone's death. Uldrich's statewide name recognition isn't as high, but party regulars -- the people likely to vote Tuesday -- know him.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie predicts that slightly less than 15 percent of Minnesota voters -- about 450,000 voters -- will turn out to vote Tuesday, but he expects record-high turnout in November based on preregistration, media coverage and interest in the national campaign.

Coleman, the Republican incumbent, can take the night off. His only primary opponent is Jack Shepard, a Minneapolis dentist who lives in Italy to avoid arrest on 25-year-old arson charges.

Here's a look at some of the notable candidates in Tuesday's U.S. Senate primaries.

DFL candidates

Al Franken, 57, of Minneapolis enjoys the advantages of party endorsement, a huge campaign war chest, numerous ads and his own celebrity. His poll numbers against Coleman have improved; a survey taken last month by Minnesota Public Radio and the Humphrey Institute showed the race in a virtual dead heat, with Franken one point up. The campaign recently reported raising $1.4 million since July, maintaining a record pace that ensures this Senate race will be among the nation's most expensive.

Priscilla Lord Faris, 66, of Sunfish Lake supported Franken earlier this year but got into the race because she believed his financial and comedic gaffes had rendered him incapable of beating Coleman. The St. Paul attorney (and daughter of former federal Judge Miles Lord) has run some TV ads, but the party establishment has rallied behind Franken and he has refused her request for debates. She previously served in elected office on the Sunfish Lake City Council.

Four other candidates round out the DFL ballot: Alve Erickson, an engineer from Chisholm, who lost to Wellstone in the 2002 DFL Senate primary; Dick Franson, a Vietnam veteran and former Minneapolis alderman who has run for statewide positions more than a dozen times; Bob Larson, of South St. Paul, and Ole Savior, a Minneapolis artist and poet who also has sought office several times.

Independence candidates

Dean Barkley, 58, of Plymouth won support from 8 percent of the voters surveyed in MPR's recent Senate poll. Those aren't Ventura-sized numbers, but unlike most of the other IP candidates Barkley can plunge right into the race without worrying about whether voters know who he is. He wants a federal balanced-budget amendment, incentives to develop alternative fuels and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Stephen Williams, 53, of Austin won the IP endorsement for Senate in June and participated in the FarmFest debate last month with Coleman, Franken and Barkley. Though a farmer and champion beekeeper, Williams grew up in Minneapolis and graduated from Blake School a few years after Franken. One of his ideas: a national sales tax to fund universal health care.

Also running in the IP primary are Kurt Anderson of Minneapolis, an attorney who was treasurer for Tim Penny's IP bid for governor in 2002; Darryl Stanton of Eden Prairie, an entrepreneur, bodybuilder and community activist who ran against U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad in 2002 as the DFL-endorsed candidate; Bill Dahn of St. Paul, who has sought office before, and Doug Williams of Chaska, who lists ending the U.S. embargo against Cuba as among his most pressing concerns.