Barkley Campaign Responds to SC Times Endorsement

Dean Barkley Endorsed By St. Cloud Times

For Immediate Release
Contact: Christopher Truscott
ctruscott@senatorbarkley.com

PLYMOUTH—The St. Cloud Times has endorsed Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley for the U.S. Senate.

Excerpts from the Times endorsement (click here to read the entire editorial):

Our view: Barkley represents the middle class best

"In Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, incumbent Republican Norm Coleman touts the importance of finding common ground while Democratic challenger Al Franken promises to represent the middle class.

"And then there is Independence candidate Dean Barkley. His is the middle class and his positions already are common ground. Voters should elect him."
…

"That's why his stands on many issues, while far from shocking, invoke a sense of realism and moderation missing from the Coleman and Franken campaigns.

"For example, he supports capping federal spending the next four years to put America on track toward reducing the federal debt.

"Similarly, he notes that the solution to fixing programs such as Social Security and Medicare rest in one basic principle: either increase revenues or decrease benefits. He's open to ideas such as indexing benefits to life expectancy, means-testing benefits, raising the tax, reforming the health care system to reduce costs, or adopting a combination of these fixes.

"Yet would the special interests connected to either of his challengers let them examine any or all those options? It's a fair question considering Coleman's voting record the past six years and Franken's penchant for proposing new programs that lack details of how to pay for them."
Click here to read the entire editorial.

Barkley was endorsed by the Minnesota Daily last week.

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Barkley, a 58-year-old Minnesota native, served as the director of the Minnesota Office of Strategic and Long Range Planning under Gov. Jesse Ventura. In November 2002, Ventura appointed Barkley to fill the final two months of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone's term.

The former governor said recently that Barkley is "measured minute by minute … the most effective U.S. senator in Minnesota history."

More information is available online at www.senatorbarkley.com.