Dean Barkley

Dean Malcolm Barkley is an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Minnesota from 2002 to 2003 as a member of the Independence Party of Minnesota. The founder and chair of the Minnesota Reform Party, he chaired Jesse Ventura's campaign for governor of Minnesota in 1998. Ventura subsequently appointed him director of the state's Office of Strategic and Long Range Planning. After Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash just weeks before the 2002 election, Ventura appointed Barkley to fill Wellstone's Senate seat. His brief tenure ended when Republican Norm Coleman was elected and sworn in.