There was a curious inevitability about Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura’s announcement that he would not run again this November. His long-running media sitcom was going stale.
In the words of TV producers, this wrestler-governor act had “jumped the shark.” It was getting old, even to him.
Despite the sinking of his approval ratings to the low 40s, Ventura might still have had a halfway decent chance to get re-elected, at least in another three-way battle like the one that brought him in.
“You’ve got to have your heart and soul into these types of jobs,” he said wearily.
Right-o, Gov’nor, and bye-bye. Ring the bell. This round’s over. Make way for the next match.
Artists are like bees, Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “they must put their lives into the sting they give.” Bill Schneider, CNN’s senior political analyst, says the same about third-party candidates: “They sting and then they die.”
The governor formerly known as “The Body” has bitten and now bows out. He was an actor and a third-party candidate, often at the same time. His bite was painful to Minnesota’s two major parties, whom he upset and often tangled with in the legislature.
But, otherwise, his sting has not stung very deeply. He offered little in the way of new ideas or issues, except some warmed-over libertarian populism–shrink government, cut taxes and legalize just about everything that doesn’t hurt anyone but the adult user.
But even when his content was conventional, he made it sound colorful. Put him on a debating stage and his opponents from the two major parties virtually disappeared into the beige background.
I was delighted to see him win in 1998. In an era in which high-priced consultants, green-eyeshade pollsters and gasbag news panelists think they have reduced election victories to a predictable science, it is reassuring to be reminded from time to time that voters still have the last word.
For better or worse, successful mavericks help to keep the political professionals and those of us who watch them on our toes. The political establishment would do well to mine the discontent that such victories represent, particularly among the young who so often seem turned off to conventional politics. Ventura won his three-way race with only 37 percent of the vote, and, according to exit polls, most of that came from voters under the age of 40, the very group that most conventional politicians and, for that matter, most major news media, find the hardest to attract.
A major part of Ventura’s appeal grew out of his relish for challenging the establishment and speaking his mind, even if he sometimes seemed to shoot from the lip before his mind was fully engaged.
The downside of such mavericks is that the public has to live with the consequences of their actions, for better or worse. People get the politicians they deserve, it often has been said, but growing numbers of Minnesotans appear to feel they deserve better than Ventura.
He seemed to start off successfully enough. He cut taxes, as he promised he would, and returned tax rebates, known as “Jesse Checks,” to the voters. He hired “New Democrat-style” advisers and didn’t try to micromanage them. He issued press credentials clearly marked “Jackals,” yet impressed many media, particularly those of us who didn’t live in Minnesota, as a colorful new radical-middle.
But things turned sour. The economy slumped and bills had to be paid. Budget deficit grew to $2 billion. Those dreaded taxes had to be raised. Vengeful old-style Democrats and Republicans ganged up on him to block his moves and he failed to transform himself into a fence-mender with them.
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Now, with his basement-level approval ratings, Ventura already sounds like a relic, a walking and endlessly talking memento of less-serious pre-Sept. 11 times.
Besides, he never seemed cut out to be a career politician. The question was never whether but when he would quit, perhaps to run for president.
He might try for the nation’s top office. If so, we voters would do well to remember where he once had his “heart and soul” and how fickle both of them proved to be.
He has nothing to lose but our support.
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