Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Copyright: 1998 Chicago Tribune Company
Pubdate: 27 Oct 1998
Author: David Brauer
Section: Sec. 1

MINNESOTA RACE A REAL WRESTLING MATCH

JESSE `THE BODY' VENTURA IS GAINING IN HIS BID TO BECOME GOVERNOR

MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota's gubernatorial campaign features a pair of
political heavyweights, but it is a former pro wrestler who has rocked the
race.

Jesse Ventura, now a shaved-pate talk radio host, has grabbed center stage
in what was supposed to be a two-man contest between Democrat Hubert H.
"Skip" Humphrey III and Republican Norm Coleman.

Reform Party candidate Ventura, a former Navy SEAL demolition expert, has
climbed within striking distance with an entertaining and populist
anti-insider campaign.

The two major-party candidates qualify as insiders. Humphrey, a popular
attorney general with a famous name, is fresh off of a $6.1 billion
settlement with the tobacco industry. Republican Coleman is the charismatic
mayor of St. Paul who is widely credited with turning around the depressed
capital city's economic fortunes.

Yet the 47-year-old Ventura, who resembles a thicker, mustachioed Mr.
Clean, has tortured each party with a wrestler's moxie.

He has said that if the Democratic-Farmer-Labor's Humphrey is elected and
unleashes his spending plans, voters will be so heavily taxed "you'll all
be put on an allowance." Ventura has derided Coleman as the "the
hypocritical hippie" because the Republican has trumpeted family values
after acknowledging smoking marijuana while a long-haired campus radical in
the late 1960s.

A recent Minneapolis Star Tribune poll showed Ventura's support more than
doubled, to 21 percent, in less than a month, within reach of Coleman's 34
percent and Humphrey's 35 percent.

Ventura campaign chairman Dean Barkley said that he believes his candidate
can win, in part because Minnesotans gave Ross Perot's third-party
presidential bid 24 percent of the vote in 1992, among Perot's highest
statewide percentages nationwide. Ventura asked Perot for money, but was
turned down.

Born as James Janos, Ventura paraded around the ring in a feather boa for
the American Wrestling Association circuit during the 1970s. Nicknamed,
"The Body," he eventually became a commentator on AWA broadcasts, and then
a bit player in Hollywood. Among his many television roles was an
appearance on "The X-Files."

Ventura is not a complete political outsider; in 1990, he was elected mayor
of the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park on a tax-cutting platform,
although his duties were more akin to those of a council member. "People
always look at me as a wrestler, not as a mayor," he complains.

In the early '90s, he become a morning talk-show host for St. Paul's
KSTP-AM. There, the gravel-voiced Ventura established his base, appealing
to the station's conservative listeners as an angry-man voice opposed to
government programs.

Yet Ventura strayed from conservative dogma on many social issues,
supporting abortion rights, equal rights for gays and lesbians, and, on
many occasions, strongly advocating the legalization of marijuana and
prostitution.

Ventura says he is gaining in the polls because he is a bridge between
big-government Democrats and socially conservative Republicans. "My
philosophy is that I'm fiscally conservative and socially
moderate-to-liberal. The narrow agendas that these parties carry now is not
where most Minnesotans are at--they are fiscally conservative to socially
moderate to liberal too," he says.

So far, fiscal issues have dominated Ventura's campaign. His slogan,
"Retaliate in '98," refers to what Ventura and supporters hope to do after
Republican Gov. Arne Carlson and the DFL-controlled legislature failed to
fully refund an estimated $4 billion biennial surplus earlier this year.

In a recent debate, Ventura charged, "If you elect the Democrats, you'll
get more social welfare, and if you elect the Republicans you'll get more
corporate welfare."

Ventura, whose PAC-free budget of $500,000 has been dwarfed by the
estimated $3 million-plus that each of his rivals and their parties will
spend, ran his first television ad this weekend.

Political insiders surveyed by the widely read newsletter Politics in
Minnesota predict Ventura will get more than 10 percent of the votes but
not more than 16 percent. "Skip Humphrey and Norm Coleman do really offer
some pretty stark contrasts, and as the campaign develops, people will pay
attention more to the main candidates," said St. Cloud State University
political science professor Steve Frank.

David Schultz, who teaches state and local politics, isn't as sure. "In
polling over two month-period, Ventura has picked up support, but his
negative ratings have not gone up," noted Schultz, who teaches at the
nearby University of Wisconsin campus in River Falls. "That's a good sign
for his continuing potential for appeal. The spotlight is on Ventura."

In recent days, though, the glare of the spotlight turned harsh. After
Ventura suggested legalization of prostitution should be considered,
Coleman and Humphrey promptly attacked. "The people of Minnesota should be
outraged, they should be frightened," Coleman said.

Lisa Peterson, a political independent from Richfield, Minn., described the
reaction among her co-workers and friends as "like a falling rock. All the
women I knew: old, young, co-workers, conservatives, liberals who had
expressed a genuine interest in maybe voting for Ventura have dropped him
like a hot potato with the news that he supports legalizing prostitution.
What on earth possessed him?"

Ventura issued a press release claiming he was misquoted.

WCCO-TV political reporter Pat Kessler, who initially reported the
comments, said Ventura is "splitting hairs." Kessler said that Ventura
responded "absolutely not," when asked directly about legalization, but
that "he later said Minnesota should consider it, pointing to places (where
prostitution is legal) like Amsterdam and Nevada."

Democratic state Rep. Myron Orfield, the target of a Ventura broadside
three years ago, said the press and public are just beginning to focus on
Ventura's foibles.

"He's just a loose cannon. He's a goofball," Orfield said. "You're playing
with fire because he can be your best friend one minute, and your enemy a
minute later."

Co-workers at Ventura's current radio home, KFAN-AM, wonder how the
candidate will handle these attacks. "Jesse on the air has had a tough,
tough time when people criticize him," said Chad Hartman, who co-hosts the
station's afternoon drive-time show.

"Most of the time, people who call him are the true believers, he has a lot
of people who love him from wrestling. But occasionally, he'd get a guy
challenging him on something like legalizing prostitution, and he'd be
quite sensitive." 
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Checked-by: Mike Gogulski