I just had a personal call, not a robo-call, from Dean Barkley, the 2008 Minnesota Independence Party candidate for the U.S. Senate. He was asking for donations to the party.
I told him that I had been thinking about sending email to the party about having gimmicks in its party platform, namely instant run-off voting and unicameral legislature. He said he would pass my thoughts on.
I suggested that a key word to use was "appropriateness"; for example, the question is not that taxes are too high or too low, but are they appropriate for what we as a society need done. He said that he was a believer in infrastructure and that he thinks a bit before driving across a bridge.
What I didn't tell him that I had been the "Party of One" columnist for the Weekly Reader. For years I have sometimes donated to candidates I particularly liked, but I can't remember when I last contributed to a party. Maybe it was 1981 when my term ended as a precinct finance chair for the Republican Party in Plymouth MN. I had wanted John Anderson as the Republican candidate in 1980 and did contribute to his independent campaign. Too bad people threw their votes away voting for the "major" party candidates:)
