Independence Party of Minnesota
Encyclopedia
The Independence Party of Minnesota (often abbreviated MNIP, IP, or IPM), formerly the Reform Party of Minnesota, is the third largest political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 in Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

, behind the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party is a major political party in the state of Minnesota and the state affiliate of the Democratic Party. It was created on April 15, 1944, with the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Farmer–Labor Party...

  (DFL) and Republican Party
Republican Party of Minnesota
The Republican Party of Minnesota is the Minnesota branch of the United States Republican Party. Elected by the party’s state central committee in June 2009, its chairman is Tony Sutton, and its deputy-chairman is Michael Brodkorb.-Early history:...

  (GOP). It is the political party of former Minnesota Governor
Governor of Minnesota
The Governor of Minnesota is the chief executive of the U.S. state of Minnesota, leading the state's executive branch. Forty different people have been governors of the state, though historically there were also three governors of Minnesota Territory. Alexander Ramsey, the first territorial...

 Jesse Ventura
Jesse Ventura
James George Janos , better known as Jesse Ventura, is an American politician, the 38th Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003, Navy UDT veteran, former SEAL reservist, actor, and former radio and television talk show host...

 (1999–2003), and endorsed former U.S. Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 Tim Penny
Tim Penny
Timothy Joe "Tim" Penny , is an American politician from Minnesota. Penny was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor member of the United States House of Representatives, 1983–1995, representing Minnesota's 1st congressional district in the 98th, 99th, 100th, 101st, 102nd and 103rd congresses.-Early life:Penny...

 as a candidate for the 2002 gubernatorial election
Election
An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...

. Originally an affiliate of the Reform Party USA
Reform Party of the United States of America
The Reform Party of the United States of America is a political party in the United States, founded in 1995 by Ross Perot...

, the party is currently affiliated with the Independence Party of America
Independence Party of America
The Independence Party of America is a political party in the United States, founded on September 23, 2007 by activists from the Independence Party of New York. Its current National Chairman is Frank MacKay...

. The party has fielded candidates for most statewide races and has been considered a major party by the state since 1994, in addition to the DFL and Republican parties The party endorsed Tom Horner
Tom Horner
Tom Horner is a Minnesota politician and a member of the Independence Party of Minnesota. He was a candidate in the 2010 election for Governor of Minnesota....

 for governor of Minnesota in the 2010 gubernatorial election
Minnesota gubernatorial election, 2010
The 2010 Minnesota gubernatorial election was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2010 to elect the 40th Governor of the U.S. state of Minnesota for a four-year term to begin in January 2011. The general election was contested by the major party candidates State Representative Tom Emmer , former Senator...

.

History

The party was formed in 1992 by Minnesota supporters of Ross Perot
Ross Perot
Henry Ross Perot is a U.S. businessman best known for running for President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. Perot founded Electronic Data Systems in 1962, sold the company to General Motors in 1984, and founded Perot Systems in 1988...

, and fielded Dean Barkley
Dean Barkley
Dean Malcolm Barkley is a politician who briefly served as a member of the United States Senate from Minnesota following the death of Paul Wellstone...

 that year as a candidate for a seat in the US House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

. Other Perot supporters worked as part of United We Stand America
United We Stand America
United We Stand America was the name selected by Texas businessman H. Ross Perot for his citizen action organization after his 1992 independent political campaign for President of the United States. Perot's 19% showing in the 1992 election was sufficient to entitle him to federal matching funds...

, and some eventually found their way to the Independence Party after the elections. Over the following years, the party began to field candidates in other state races. In 1995 the IPM affiliated with the national Reform Party and renamed itself the Reform Party of Minnesota.

The state party carried that name until it disaffiliated from the national party in 2000 due to factional dissent and the increasing influence of Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...

. The party immediately changed its name back to Independence Party. Buchanan, his most influential opponents having left the party, went on to become the Reform Party's candidate for president.
On 2004's Super Tuesday
Super Tuesday
In the United States, Super Tuesday, in general, refers to the Tuesday in February or March of a presidential election year when the greatest number of states hold primary elections to select delegates to national conventions at which each party's presidential candidates are officially nominated...

, March 2, the party held caucus
Caucus
A caucus is a meeting of supporters or members of a political party or movement, especially in the United States and Canada. As the use of the term has been expanded the exact definition has come to vary among political cultures.-Origin of the term:...

es around the state along with Minnesota's other three parties. Since the organization had no national party affiliation, it merely ran a straw poll
Straw poll
A straw poll or straw vote is a vote with nonbinding results. Straw polls provide dialogue among movements within large groups, reflecting trends like organization and motivation...

 to gauge the opinions of members with regard to the available presidential candidates in the 2004 election. For the poll, the group used instant-runoff voting, a voting method that has been gaining interest in the state. Additionally, the party had several fairly progressive agenda items to vote on. For a bit of levity, there was also a vote on the mascot
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...

 to use for the party. Three top possibilities were the bison
American Bison
The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...

, hawk
Hawk
The term hawk can be used in several ways:* In strict usage in Australia and Africa, to mean any of the species in the subfamily Accipitrinae, which comprises the genera Accipiter, Micronisus, Melierax, Urotriorchis and Megatriorchis. The large and widespread Accipiter genus includes goshawks,...

, and white buffalo
White buffalo
White buffalo are American bison that are considered to be sacred signs in several Native American religions, and thus have great spiritual importance in those cultures and are visited for prayer and other religious ceremonies...

. Technology was also involved in the IPM's caucusing, as it used the Internet to conduct a two-day online “virtual caucus” for people who were unable to attend the evening of Super Tuesday.

On March 5, 2004, the party announced that the presidential winner was John Edwards
John Edwards
Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...

, who had privately circulated his decision to withdraw shortly before IP members voted. The Super Tuesday ballot was probably the first state-wide experiment in instant-runoff voting. The Bison, to be named Indy, won the mascot vote, out-polling the nearest competitors by a 19% margin.

In May 2005, Peter Hutchinson
Peter Hutchinson
Peter Hutchinson is an American politician, businessman and philanthropy executive from the U.S. state of Minnesota. He ran as the Independence Party of Minnesota candidate for Governor of Minnesota in 2006....

, who was Minnesota Finance Commissioner in the Rudy Perpich
Rudy Perpich
Rudolph George "Rudy" Perpich, Sr. was an American politician and the longest-serving governor of Minnesota. A member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, he served as the 34th and 36th Governor of Minnesota from December 29, 1976 to January 4, 1979, and from January 3, 1983, to January 7, 1991...

 administration, announced that he was planning to seek the Independence Party's nomination for governor in the 2006 election. Hutchinson finished 3rd of 6 earning 141,735 votes for 6.4% of the total vote.

As of 2006, the party has had two members in the Minnesota Senate
Minnesota Senate
The Minnesota Senate is the upper house in the Minnesota Legislature. There are 67 members, half as many as are in the Minnesota House of Representatives. In terms of membership, it is the largest upper house of any state legislature. Each Senate district in the state includes an A and B House...

. Bob Lessard of International Falls, joined the party in 2001 after he was re-elected to the Senate as an independent with 54.3% of the vote. He did not seek re-election in 2002. Also in the 2002 election, Sheila Kiscaden
Sheila Kiscaden
Sheila Kiscaden is a United States politician. She is a former Minnesota State Senator from District 30, which includes much of Rochester and nearby rural areas. She was first elected to the Senate in 1992 as a Republican. In 2002, after being denied the Republican endorsement at the senate...

 of Rochester was turned down for endorsement for re-election to the Minnesota Senate by the Republican party
Republican Party of Minnesota
The Republican Party of Minnesota is the Minnesota branch of the United States Republican Party. Elected by the party’s state central committee in June 2009, its chairman is Tony Sutton, and its deputy-chairman is Michael Brodkorb.-Early history:...

. She joined the IP and won re-election, giving the Independence Party its first victory in a Minnesota legislative election. She joined the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in January 2006. There have been no members of the IPM in the Minnesota House of Representatives
Minnesota House of Representatives
The Minnesota House of Representatives is the lower house in the Minnesota State Legislature. There are 134 members elected to two-year terms, twice the number of members in the Minnesota Senate. Each senate district is divided in half and given the suffix A or B...

.

In the 2006 elections IP 5th district congressional candidate Tammy Lee received 51,456 votes for 21.01% of the total vote. Lee's strong showing resulted in part from her unusually strong (for third parties) fundraising, Lee raised $228,938 for her run.

In May 2008, a "Draft
Draft (politics)
In elections in the United States, political drafts are used to encourage or pressure a certain person to enter a political race, by demonstrating a significant groundswell of support for the candidate. A write-in campaign may also be considered a draft campaign.-The movement to draft Dwight D....

 Dean Barkley" movement started on the web to encourage the former senator to run again. He accepted, and came in 3rd
United States Senate election in Minnesota, 2008
The 2008 United States Senate election in Minnesota took place on November 4, 2008. After a legal battle lasting over eight months, Al Franken from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party defeated Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in one of the closest elections in the history of the Senate...

, winning a significant 15% of all votes cast. His candidacy had a significant impact on a race in which the eventual winner Al Franken
Al Franken
Alan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....

 and then-incumbent Senator Norm Coleman
Norm Coleman
Norman Bertram Coleman, Jr. is an American attorney and politician. He was a United States senator from Minnesota from 2003 to 2009. Coleman was elected in 2002 and served in the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses. Before becoming a senator, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, from 1994 to 2002...

 were separated by only 312 votes.
Two other federal candidates, David Dillon in the 3rd congressional district and Bob Anderson in the 6th congressional district, received 10% of the vote in their races.
Thus, 2008 is high-water mark for the Minnesota Independence Party in both the number of federal candidates running and the percent of vote received—both key measures of the growing base of support.

Platform

Theoretically, the party is meant to be centrist
Centrism
In politics, centrism is the ideal or the practice of promoting policies that lie different from the standard political left and political right. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of left-right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between...

, though the group might be somewhat more accurately described as “fiscally conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

 and socially inclusive,” a phrase Ventura often used.

Famous members

  • Jesse Ventura
    Jesse Ventura
    James George Janos , better known as Jesse Ventura, is an American politician, the 38th Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003, Navy UDT veteran, former SEAL reservist, actor, and former radio and television talk show host...

     – Governor of Minnesota: 1999–2003.
  • Dean Barkley
    Dean Barkley
    Dean Malcolm Barkley is a politician who briefly served as a member of the United States Senate from Minnesota following the death of Paul Wellstone...

     – U.S. Senator from Minnesota: 2002–2003 (Appointed by Gov. Ventura to fill a vacancy due to Sen. Paul Wellstone
    Paul Wellstone
    Paul David Wellstone was a two-term U.S. Senator from the state of Minnesota and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College...

    's death)
  • Mae Schunk
    Mae Schunk
    Mae A. Schunk served as the 45th Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003...

     – Lt. Governor of Minnesota: 1999–2003
  • Richard McCluhan – Former chairman of the party (1999 - 2001) during Jesse Ventura's presence in office.
  • Tim Penny
    Tim Penny
    Timothy Joe "Tim" Penny , is an American politician from Minnesota. Penny was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor member of the United States House of Representatives, 1983–1995, representing Minnesota's 1st congressional district in the 98th, 99th, 100th, 101st, 102nd and 103rd congresses.-Early life:Penny...

     – 2002 Independence Party candidate for Governor
  • Peter Hutchinson
    Peter Hutchinson
    Peter Hutchinson is an American politician, businessman and philanthropy executive from the U.S. state of Minnesota. He ran as the Independence Party of Minnesota candidate for Governor of Minnesota in 2006....

     – 2006 Independence Party candidate for Governor
  • Tom Horner
    Tom Horner
    Tom Horner is a Minnesota politician and a member of the Independence Party of Minnesota. He was a candidate in the 2010 election for Governor of Minnesota....

    – 2010 Independence Party candidate for Governor

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK