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Four months ago, Bob Anderson said there was one obstacle keeping him from jumping into the 6th Congressional District race next year: uncertainty about whether the Independence Party (IP) will continue its policy of cross-endorsement.

Last election, when Anderson ran as an unendorsed IP candidate, the party endorsed Elwyn Tinklenberg, who was already the DFL’s endorsed candidate. Rep. Michele Bachmann squeaked out a win, with a margin of victory of just 3 percent. Anderson garnered 10 percent of the vote.

“I don’t want to get involved in that again,” he told the Minnesota Independent in July, adding that he’d only consider running if he could vie for the party endorsement. “I want the party’s support. I don’t want ‘anti’ support.”

After Saturday’s State Party Convention in Brooklyn Park, the party decided to remove that obstacle for candidates like Anderson. It voted to stop cross-endorsing.

“Our delegates feel that offering endorsement support to candidates of the parties that brought us this systemic mess diluted our message,” Jack Uldrich, party chair, in a press release. “If other political candidates want our endorsement, they are welcome to have it but they are going to have to leave their current party to get it.”

The party also voted to keep its ban on PAC money, a move that together with ditching cross-endorsement “clarif[ies] and amplif[ies] the fact that the Independence Party is the only true reform party,” according to Uldrich.

It doesn’t clarify Anderson’s involvement in the 2010 race to unseat Bachmann, however. In an email he says he’s “encouraged by these decisions,” but he hasn’t decided yet whether he’ll run again.

He does see opportunity, though. With cross-endorsement gone, the landscape has shifted. Candidate Maureen Reed was seeking both the DFL and IP endorsements, but many pundits think DFLer Tarryl Clark is likely to get that party’s endorsement. (Clark recently got support from Sen. Al Franken, who penned a fundraising letter on her behalf.)

If that happens, Anderson, who sees Reed as more moderate than Clark, thinks he’s got a shot, should he get the IP’s nod. “I see a wide open middle if Clark defeats Reed,” Anderson said via email. “I feel Clark is too far to the left to win in the 6th District.”

There’s one scenario that could do in Anderson’s plans should he opt to run: Reed signing back on with the Independence Party and trying for anointment by the party. She ran as the party’s choice for lieutenant governor’s office in 2006.