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From the Star Tribune's Morning Hot Dish newsletter:

Former U.S. Senator for a few weeks Dean Barkley is now running for the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Barkley, a longtime Independence Party stalwart and one of the first to urge Jesse Ventura to run for governor, was Ventura's appointee to the Senate after then-Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash in 2002.

Barkley, who ran for U.S. Senate in 2008, said: "I decided to try a different approach."

He said while he will be limited on how much he can campaign for the court, Minnesotans "know who I am and know how my mind works and I think I've got a good track record."

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