Former U.S. Senator Dean Barkley says he - or Jesse Ventura - will enter the race for senate within the next month. Barkley, who helped run Ventura's successful campaign for Minnesota governor in 1998, announced his intentions on Brad Walton's overnight program on WCCO Radio: "If not him (Ventura), I certainly am considering - strongly considering - that I'll do it, if he won't", Barkley said. "I talked to him this (Monday) afternoon. We're talking about it. He's thinking about it. And I think, by the end of June, one of us will be in the ring, trying to duke this thing out."

Barkley was appointed by then-Governor Ventura to finish out the senate term of the late Paul Wellstone in the fall of 2002. Barkley and Ventura both have said the voters deserve another candidate choice in this fall's U.S. Senate race. Recent polls show Republican incumbent Norm Coleman leading both DFL candidates Al Franken and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer.