Dean Barkley visited Austin Tuesday.

Just … Dean Barkley.

No entourage. No campaign aides. No handlers. No press representative. Nobody but Barkley.

Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican, and challenger Al Franken, the Democrat, have millions of dollars to finance their campaigns for the U.S. Senate and minions to do their bidding on the campaign trail.

Barkley goes it alone.

The Independence Party-endorsed candidate has cracked the 20 percent voter approval mark in recent polls and that’s encouraging to the man who once briefly served in the Senate.

“I’ve gone from 8 to 20 percent in the last few months,” Barkley said, during a campaign swing through Austin Tuesday. “I ran Jesse’s campaign, and I’m right about where he was.”

Jesse Ventura was elected Minnesota governor in 1998, running as an Independent member of the Reform Party. Barkley ran the successful gubernatorial campaign.

Barkley served as a member of the United States Senate, from Nov. 12, 2002 to Jan. 3, 2003.

He was appointed to the Senate by Governor Ventura to complete the term of Senator Paul Wellstone (Democrat), who died in a plane crash late in his term of office.

He drove himself first to Albert Lea and then Austin.

“When I’m done here, I’ll drive myself back home to the Cities and start over tomorrow,” he said.

“I think the same thing is going on today that was going on 10 years ago when Jesse ran,” he said. “I think it’s stronger today.”

Barkley has 13 days to build his 20 percent into a majority of voters Nov. 4.

“I was up in Moorhead yesterday (Monday) and Brainerd, and today I’m in southern Minnesota. Tomorrow (Wednesday) I will go back to northern Minnesota,” he said. “Obviously, I am not going to be able to buy the election. I just have to get my message out to enough people, what their option in this race is.”

“That there is a clear difference, between what I’m proposing and how I operate and what we would get with either Al or Norm,” he continued, “I think if I get the message out to enough people with the mood of the electorate right now, I think anything can happen.”

“They’re predicting an 80 percent voter turnout on Election Day, and I guarantee you the extra 30 percent, who are going to show up won’t be Democrats or Republicans,” he said.

Each day as he goes deeper and deeper in to the campaign, Barkley “senses” growing dissatisfaction with both the incumbent and the challenger.

At a Duluth debate with the Senate candidates, voters literally gave Barkley the shirts off their backs.

“The Duluth debate we had was a good example,” he said. “That was filled predominantly with young students wearing Al Franken T-shirts and a few Colemans, too.”

“After that debate, I had about 50 of those people who came up to me, who were Al Franken or Norm Coleman supporters and shake my hand and said they were taking their shirts off and supporting me,” he said. “That happens everywhere I go.”

“The challenge is to get to enough people to let them know what their option is,” he said.

Barkley’s bare-bones (i.e., very low budget) campaign does not allow any do-overs: he must make every appearance everywhere count.

His platform touches all the bases: End the Iraq war, balance the federal budget and pay down the $10-trillion national debt, achieve energy independence and, a Barkley personal favorite, enact real ethics reform by banning members of Congress from taking money from industries they regulate.

“Ask people why they don’t trust Washington and this is it,” he said of the latter issue, “We can’t tell people to ‘trust us’ and then go and fly off to a fundraiser.”

And lest voters think the third party candidate is not to be taken seriously, Barkley will set them straight.

“I think the fringe are the Democrats and the Republicans,” he said. “I represent where most Minnesotans are: We’re centrist. We’re common sense. I’m just a middle class slug like everyone else.”

Has any voter heard Norm or Al call themselves a ‘slug?’”

For more information about the candidate, go to www.senatorbarkley.com

The Independence Party candidate will be on KTCA Channel Two’s Almanac show Friday night.

He and the Republican incumbent and Democrat challenger will conduct their final debate the Sunday before Election Day on Minnesota Public Radio.