INDEPENDENTS VIE FOR ATTENTION

MADISON (AP) - One wants to legalize marijuana. Another wants to lock up
parents who smoke around their kids. Another thinks he already is the governor.

They're the forgotten few - Wisconsin's independent candidates for
governor. Driven by adrenaline, angst and anger, they want to score the big
upset by somehow knocking off Republican Gov. Scott McCallum and Democrat
Jim Doyle in the Nov. 5 election.

"Each of them says the other is a liar, a thief and unethical. What if
they're both right?" Reform Party candidate Alan Eisenberg said of the two
leading candidates.

Libertarian Ed Thompson, former Gov. Tommy Thompson's younger brother, has
drawn the most attention among the independents. But Eisenberg, Wisconsin
Green Party candidate Jim Young, Rasta Movement candidate Aneb Jah Rasta
Sensas-Utcha Nefer I, and independents Ty Bollerud and Mike Mangan all are
on the ballot, too. They think they can win.

Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura's surprise victory as
Minnesota's governor and Tommy Thompson's decision to join President Bush's
cabinet after a 16-year stranglehold on Wisconsin politics has inspired
more people to run this year, said Jay Heck, executive director of the
government watchdog group Common Cause in Wisconsin.

"It's the first competitive election since 1986," Heck said. "Lightning
could strike.

The independents say their time has come after recent scandals over illegal
campaigning rocked Wisconsin.

Young, Sun Prairie's city assessor, said he's running because those in
power are abusing people's rights.

His agenda includes legalizing marijuana and establishing hemp as a major
crop to re-energize agriculture. He wants to promote organic agriculture,
levy a pollution tax on corporations and include American Indians in-state
policy decisions on natural resources.

Eisenberg, a Milwaukee attorney, insurance broker and senior Olympic
pingpong gold medalist, said he's fed up with Wisconsin government, too.

"I'm an angry, passionate man," Eisenberg said, pounding the table at a
Madison restaurant. "And my level last fall rose to the vomit level. What's
been going on around here is disgusting." Eisenberg, who said he nearly
lost his wife to smoking-induced pneumonia last year, wants to restore the
state's tobacco settlement money.

The state sold its annual payments from a national settlement with big
tobacco companies - an estimated $6 billion over 25 years - for a one-time
lump sum. Eisenberg wants to raise the price of cigarettes to $10 a pack
and charge parents who smoke around their children with a felony.

Nefer, meanwhile, said he was injected with "Korean War syndrome" and
"mad-deer disease" when he was born. He said he was elected governor before
birth.

Mangan, a self-employed Oconomowoc energy consultant who ran for governor
in 1994, said he wants to boost Wisconsin's cheese exports and cut the
government's energy use by 30 percent.

Bollerud, a Janesville construction worker, said he doesn't understand
where all the state's money goes.

"If somebody isn't stealing money up there, then God strike me dead right
now," he said.

The outsider image appeals to some Americans, but Wisconsin's independents
won't make a dent because they don't have political connections or fat
wallets, analysts say.

"Complete outsiders, people with little experience, very seldom if ever get
elected," said Marquette University political science professor John McAdams.

None of them can match the millions Doyle and McCallum are spending on
campaign ads, which drown out the independents' handshakes and Web sites,
Heck said.

Still, Young said people are so frustrated with government they'll look for
alternatives Nov. 5.

"It's up to the people," he said.