PEOPLE Party as the party of environmental concern. Party co-founder Tony Whittaker noted in an interview with Derek Wall '… voters did not connect PEOPLE with ecology. What I wanted was something that the media could look up in their files so that, when they wanted a spokesman of the issue of ecology, they could find the Ecology Party and pick up the phone. It was as brutal and basic as that. PEOPLE didn't communicate what we had hoped it would communicate'. Derek Wall, in his history of the Green Party, contends that the new political movement focused initially on the theme
Ecology Democracy Party through education and grassroots organizing. The party attempts to offer guidance for necessary structural changes in the economy, the way we vote, and who influences our government. It attempts to accomplish these structural changes through three mandates: The party advocates ecology, campaign finance reform, proportional representation, ending corporate personhood, holism, public funding of elections and establishing a tax-refundable Minnesota currency with zero interest. Ken Pentel ran for Governor of Minnesota in 2010 and received 6,180 votes, or 0.29%. In 2012 the party endorsed write-in candidate Andrew Schuler for U.S. Senate and ran Anthony Hilton for the State House, district 59B.