Presidential candidate runs only in state

With

Christian

Freedom

Party

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- A former St. Paul DFL legislator turned entrepreneur who threw his hat into the presidential ring late this year is hoping to grab voters that don't like George W. Bush or John Kerry and promote Christian social justice.

Thomas Harens of the newly-created Christian Freedom Party will be on the Nov. 2 ballot. He is only running in Minnesota.

Harens got on the Minnesota ballot in June after getting more than 2,500 signatures in urban neighborhoods and at liberal and black churches.

Party planks cite bible verses regarding poverty, the environment, war, human rights, terrorism and human rights.

Harens said the main party mission is to educate the silent majority of progressive, moderate and other true Christians whose faith has been politically misrepresented by the Christian Right Wing in their unholy alliances with republicanism (the corrupt use of individual and corporate wealth).

It is also geared to those vilified by the liberal democratic establishment of being pawns of single-issue groups, and unfairly labeled by the public as being all of one political persuasion.

Republican and DFL spokesmen did not speculate on Harens or how his party might affect the election.

Harens was born and raised in Worthington before graduating from Winona State University. He was elected to the Minnesota Legislature at age 25.

Now the Government Relations Manager at ExecuTrain, a leading Minnesota firm in private computer training for corporate employees, Harens founded ACCESS 2020, which develops and promotes voting access technology.

He recently wrote "Accidental Senator," a theatrical comedy about a politician that fell into a U.S. Senate seat after the incumbent died in a car accident.