Keeping His Eye on The Ball

By Matthew Cooper

You can print this," says Jesse Ventura, eating a banana and a granola bar. He's still miffed about that damn Playboy interview, the one that sent his polls plummeting. "That was my fault in simply not saying 'some,'" he explains. "Had I simply said some religions are a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people, probably not that much would have been made of it." Ventura is peeved that belittlers, like Gary Bauer and Geraldine Ferraro, have dubbed him a bigot. "I looked it up," Ventura says of the word. "It's someone who's intolerable [Jesse's Yogi Berraism] of any other religion but their own. I'm the opposite. I'm tolerant of all religions... I don't care if someone wants to go out there and worship the bark on a tree." The ex-wrestler growls, "Wait 'til I ever see them face to face." At 5 ft. 6 in., Bauer should hope that day doesn't come.

This is what it's like being Jesse Ventura at the millennium: you're always being dragged into the ring--by reporters, by opponents and by yourself. You're the Governor of Minnesota, and what you most want to do is, well, govern Minnesota. You've got plans: you want to raise hunting license fees and use the money to protect wildlife habitats. You want more state services available on the Internet. You want to abolish the two-house state legislature and replace it with a single house. And yet there are these distractions. You go to a Timberwolves game and shout at the ref like any NBA fan, and then you're ridiculed on TV as a hothead. No wonder Ventura jokes that "benevolent dictatorship" may be the "perfect form of government."

Alas, he doesn't have the luxury. Instead, the experience of being thrown "off message," as the pols say, has left Ventura in a bind. He wants to have a national influence, although he vows not to run for President next year: "I have no desire for that job." Ventura would like to see a Reform Party movement; he'd like his party to consider other presidential candidates in addition to Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump. But the more he speaks about anything but governing Minnesota, the more he risks seeming distracted. "His strength is that people think he's fighting for them," says a Democratic pollster. "If they ever think it's about him, he's dead." That day hasn't come yet: no one's polled his popularity publicly since October when it sank to the low 40s from a phenomenal perch near 70. But Minnesota pols think he's coming back, and his newfound reticence may have something to do with it. "I'm still myself...but I find myself not giving opinions on things that have nothing to do with government," he says.

It's a bit sad that Ventura is taking a time-out, and it's also a '90s irony: today's political culture craves authenticity but bristles when it actually gets some. But ride with the Guv in his Lincoln Navigator, and you find that even the chastened Ventura is more candid than 99% of pols. On the Cuban trade embargo he says what self-styled truth tellers like Bill Bradley don't: "It's stupid. Fidel's outlasted eight Presidents. Is it an ego thing? Do we have to wait for him to die?" He's the rare non-Democratic Governor who gives Clinton generous credit for the economy. Try getting George W. Bush to do that.

Ventura also has strong words for Ross Perot, his Reform Party rival. He calls Russ Verney, a Perot ally finishing his term as head of the party, Russ "Varmint." A WTO-loving, NAFTA-defending free trader, Ventura wants to rid the party of its protectionist platform plank: "That's something Perot wrote in." On trade he considers Perot a hypocrite. "All his businesses are international, so if it's good enough for him, why not for everyone else?"

But for all his outrageousness, Ventura is proving to be a good manager. Yes, it helps that he's got a surplus. But he's been praised for his appointees. And he dived deep into the bureaucracy to push his ideas. On a recent visit to the natural resources department, Ventura asked detailed, even wonky, questions about its greenways program to link environmentally sensitive areas. Even opponents like Democratic House leader Tom Pugh concede that "he had a very good first legislative session."

Above all, Ventura wants a unicameral legislature. At first, his obsession with unicameralism seems like an exotic if not weird fixation, sort of like collecting Belgian coins. Right now, only Nebraska has a unicameral legislature. So why the enthusiasm? One reason: Ventura believes that many of the worst political shenanigans come in closed-door conference committees when House and Senate leaders write omnibus budget bills. With one house, there'd be no such secret confabs.

Ventura wants the issue to come before voters. But getting the measure on the ballot requires legislative approval. Getting legislators to acquiesce to a referendum that could abolish a third of their jobs is a hard sell, especially in a year when Ventura will, despite his efforts to stay focused, face the distractions of presidential politics. But Ventura--still a volunteer high school football coach--vows not to be sidelined.