The Maverick: A 'Bad Boy' Wrestler Ignores the Script

November 5, 1998

THE MAVERICK

A 'Bad Boy' Wrestler Ignores the Script

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By PAM BELLUCK

LOOMINGTON, Minn. -- He's given up body-slamming Hulk Hogan. He's quit wearing a pink feather boa and glitter tights. He no longer pummels alien invaders with Arnold Schwarzenegger or plays characters who snarl things like, "I ain't got time to bleed."
So now, Jesse Ventura -- former "bad boy" on the pro wrestling circuit, action-flick actor, Navy SEAL, and talk radio shock jock -- says he's ready for a new nickname. He doesn't want to be called "the Body" any more. "I'm Jesse the Mind now," he said Wednesday.
After all, Ventura -- the strapping, chrome-domed, gravel-throated sports-celluloid celebrity -- has a new job. In an earth-rattling political upset Tuesday that left politicians and prognosticators shellshocked, Ventura became the next governor of Minnesota.
Unable to resist, David Letterman instantly offered up a Top Ten list of slogans for the new chief of state, including "Building a steroid-enhanced bridge to the 21st century," and "C'mon, don't you want to see Newt Gingrich in a chokehold."
And Ventura, who ran as a third party maverick against two respected and established major-party candidates, strutted a little through his victory party as if he had just whacked Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka.
"They said a vote for me was a wasted vote," he said. "Well guess what? Those wasted votes wasted them."
Ventura's breathtaking victory -- with 37 percent of the vote -- marked the first time a Reform Party candidate has ever won statewide office and makes him the highest ranking elected official in Ross Perot's party. And it was a huge humiliation for his rivals -- the Democrat, Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III, son of the former vice president, who got 28 percent, and the Republican, St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, who got 34 percent.
"Oh my gosh, it's stunning," said Chris Gilbert, chairman of the department of political science at Gustavus Aldophus University in St. Peter, Minn., one of a legion of experts who initially thought Ventura was just a "curiosity."
"Regardless of how we try to explain it, it's a really stunning, striking outcome for Minnesota and the nation, to have a Reform Party candidate break through and for the Democrats and Republicans in the state to essentially see all their core supporters taken away from them," Gilbert said.
A few observers were not as shocked.
"Jesse's victory proves that people want a real man in power to lead, not a play plastic puppet like other politicians," said Hulk Hogan, who played good guy to Ventura's bad guy. (He added: "I'd love to get him in the ring one time before he becomes president.")
Outside of Minnesota, the Jesse phenomenon might seem comical. But inside the state, at least in 20-20 hindsight, it actually seems to make sense. Behind it is a streak of protest vote, a trace of the national backlash against politicians. But Ventura was able to cobble together a number of other advantages.
In Minnesota, Ventura, 47, had tremendous name recognition, primarily from his talk-radio show, and that made up for his lack of campaign funds.
While Coleman and Humphrey were both competent and well-regarded, they lacked luster and began to snipe at each other in what, for Minnesota, was a negative campaign. Ventura, on the other hand, is an appealingly colorful mixture of affable bravado and plainspoken drive. In one of his television commercials children play with a Jesse Ventura action figure who scuffles with Evil Special Interest Man.
What's more, voters with low expectations were pleasantly surprised when Ventura, who served four years as the mayor of Brooklyn Park, a suburb of Minneapolis, turned out to be a substantive candidate too, able to clearly articulate opinions on almost every issue, many of them refreshingly straightforward.
Describing himself as a fiscal conservative with liberal and moderate social views, Ventura supports abortion rights and gay rights. He refuses money from special interest groups, and opposes school vouchers, merit pay for teachers and taxpayer funding for a new baseball stadium. He even mused publicly about legalizing prostitution and drugs, although he says he's not suggesting he approves of the idea.

In a state with a populist affection for political mavericks -- Ross Perot got 24 percent of the presidential vote here in 1992 -- all this went over like gangbusters.
Mark Kotasek, a 32-year-old baker from Bloomington, said he was persuaded to vote for Ventura precisely because the other candidates seemed to marginalize him.
"When I first heard about him running, I thought it was going to be a stunt," said Gary Isakson, a 30-year-old sales representative for a Minneapolis concrete company. "But I hear him in these debates and he really won me over. I'm sick of professional politicians voting for specific bills just because they have to vote along party lines. I liked what he said about if a bill comes across his desk, he'll sign if it's good for Minnesota. He just talks straight from the heart."
"The Body" was born James George Janos, still his legal name, but he began to call himself Jesse Ventura at the start of his professional wrestling career in 1975. "Ventura" sounded like it fit the bleached-blond surfer-wrestler image he was cultivating after coming out of a stint as a Navy S.E.A.L in Vietnam.
"He wasn't really a very good wrestler, but he had charisma," said Dave Meltzer, publisher and editor of Wrestling Observer newsletter. "His best move was standing on the apron yelling at the fans while his tag team partner did all the work."
Ventura believes that wrestling has laid a foundation for his politics because it made him comfortable ad-libbing and performing. Others see different advantages.
"The nature of wrestling is that when you make move A and someone blocks move A, you've got to make move B, C or D," said Nick Bockwinkle, four-time heavyweight wrestling champion who lives in Minnesota. "You've always got to have alternatives and I think that translates to the political structure as well." (Sounds like he'd make a good cabinet member in a Ventura administration).
In 1986, Ventura left wrestling and began to get small roles in films like "Batman and Robin" and "Predator" with Schwarzenegger. He went on to be Brooklyn Park mayor from 1991 to 1995. He and his wife Terry own a thoroughbred horse ranch outside Minneapolis. He says he will continue to be the conditioning coach a high school football team, where one of his mantras is "What is pain? Pain is good!"
Ventura's greatest challenge will be to work with the state legislature -- a Democratic Senate and, as of Tuesday, for the first time in years, a Republican House. But the man who as a candidate once replied to a question about getting along with the legislature by baring his grapefruit-sized bicep, seemed unfazed by that conundrum.
"I've jumped out of an airplane 34 times," he said. "I've dove 212 feet under water. I've done a lot of things that defied death, and this isn't defying death. It's just common sense and hard work."
On Wednesday, Ventura, who said he was "awestruck" and punchy from exhaustion, met with Gov. Arne Carlson, whose staff had briefing books ready. Then he did an hour of his radio show -- live in a packed sports bar -- fielding calls from, among others, the owner of the Vikings, who offered him his pick of seats, saying "you can body slam me on the 50-yard line if you want to."
Ventura said he never even got so much as a press pass before. "You know," he said, "I'm beginning to kind of like this gig."

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