Stephen Williams is still out there, running for the U.S. Senate.

He is the Independence Party endorsed candidate; not Dean Barkley or Jack Uldrich or any of the other six IP candidates.

By his own admission, he hasn’t spent any money on print or radio and TV advertisements.

There are no “Williams For U.S. Senate” billboards or banners.

His political business card is one-of-a-kind. It reads “Stephen Williams for U.S. Senate” and adds a reminder Independence Party Primary September 9” and his web site www.PrairieFireUSA.com and nothing else.

The business cards are Williams’ own wildlife photos of wild flowers and frogs and snapping turtles.

No picture of Williams.

When voters go to the polls Tuesday, their IP partisan ballots will also be troublesome for the candidate: He’s not the only “Williams” running. Doug Williams is another candidate.

How to tell the Brownsdale farmer Williams apart from Doug Williams or front-runner Barkley or party leader Uldrich or Kurt Michael Anderson, Darryl Stanton or Bill Dahn may be a challenge for voters.

Is Williams worried? “I feel I have a good shot at it,” he said. “Dean Barkley is definitely the front runner, but I’ve got the party’s endorsement, and I feel good about my chances.

The winner of Tuesday’s partisan primary will advance to the Tuesday, Nov. 4, State General Election. True, the “ruling parties” as Williams calls the Republican and Democrat-Farmer-Labor parties are expected to garner the most media attention, but Williams said a week at the 2008 Minnesota State Fair strengthened his bid for the U.S. Senate race: Tuesday and in November.

“We need to restore ‘We, the people’ to the process instead of ‘We, the ruling parties’ or ‘We, the lobbyists,” Williams said.

He also spent a week at the Minnesota State Fair, where he handed out his “critter cards” and talked with Minnesotans about the issues.

“The other candidates had their own booths,” Williams said. “There was lots of traffic at the IP booth. We were situated between the friend cheese curds and roasted corn.”

“Most of the people I talked with were totally disgusted with politics as usual,” he said of the interaction with potential voters. “The negative campaigning was one thing, but the failure of the ruling parties to deal with the economic issues that are putting a tremendous burden on the middle, working class, were the major issues on their minds along with health care.”

Williams estimated his State Fair campaigning resulted in personal endorsements. “I would say about 85 percent of the people I talked with were behind me 100 percent,” he said. “When we finished talking, they reached out their hand and say ‘Thank you very much and good luck’ because, they also said, no one else is being honest about what they would do if elected.”

Williams has relied in large part on the Internet to state his opinions on issues.

His Prairie Fire USA web site is also decorated with pictures of wild flowers and critters.

His message has been the same since he won the IP endorsement in June. “We cannot borrow and consume our way to prosperity,” he said. “Instead of trying to borrow and consume we have to shift to production and conservation and stewardship of our economic, environmental and human resources.”

“Without exception, everyone I talked to thought the economic stimulus checks sent out last spring were a joke,” he said. “They thought they were just an attempt to prevent the economy from crashing until after the November election and only will add more to the economic burdens of the future.”

Williams task now is to translate handshakes and best wishes into votes …… starting Tuesday.

Relying on a week at the State Fair after a round of County Fair visits in the 1st Congressional District were a necessity.

“Because of time and money, I can’t talk with everyone anyway, so I thought I might as well talk to the people closest to me,” he said.

At both the State Fair and the County fairs, Williams heard the same issues rise to the top of citizens’ lists of concerns: Economy, energy, health care, ending the war in Iraq and foreign policy in general.

Two years ago Williams ran for the 1st Congressional District seat held by incumbent Gil Gutknecht, a Rochester Republican.

Tim Walz, a DFLer, defeated the five-term incumbent.

Williams lost and was an afterthought.

Now, he’s back again with his party’s endorsement.

“I’ve had 100 times the contacts with people this time around. I was part of the debate at FarmFest. I’ve been on MPR and Almanac. I’ve been to all those County fairs and the State Fair, too. I’ve had many, many times more the exposure,” he said of his 2008 campaign.

But, there’s Barkley.

“He’s gotten more exposure, and he has the media contacts and name recognition,” Williams said. “He did the tag-team politics with Jesse (Ventura) and left us wondering if Jesse was going to run or Dean.”

“It will be tough,” he said, “but at the same time I recognize if I can’t prevail over Dean in the primary I would not be able to prevail over the nominees of the Democrats or Republicans, because they’re going to have even more resources then Dean has.”

“If I am able to prevail over Dean that would be a nice next step,” he said. “I think the strength of my message is what has carried me to this point and what will carry me to November.”