Column: Ventura’s departure welcome, but it does leave a hole
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, June 25, 2002
My feelings about Jesse Ventura are complicated. Which seems appropriate, since he is a very complicated individual. He has impressed and exasperated me, and many other people, sometimes on the same day, sometimes with the same act or words.
Part of that could be intentional. He doesn’t want to be predictable &045; whether he’s dealing with enemies or supporters. Ventura seems to enjoy frustrating people’s expectations, starting from the very beginning of his campaign for governor. The people who are supposed to know about such things said he didn’t have a chance. But he won anyway. Then his term as governor was supposed to be a big joke. And while it had its lighter moments, it was a pretty solid performance.
And just when we think we do have him figured out, Jesse Ventura does something completely different. Like when he announced he wasn’t going to run for another term. I thought his ego was too big to let him walk away from the job after only one term.
I suspect the activists in both of the major parties breathed a big sigh of relief. This thorn in their side is going away. It seems as though politics as usual will be returning to Minnesota.
Now despite my surprise at his decision, I wouldn’t have voted for Jesse Ventura again. For one thing, he’s far too arrogant when it comes to his dealings with print journalists, especially when he’s more than willing to accept the income provided from exclusive interviews with famous television personalities. He’s made the common mistake of confusing the work of a real journalist with the profit margins of the journalist’s employer. One thing I learned in my six months working in a newsroom is that newspapers don’t make a profit from the stories they run. They generate their profits from advertising. The money we pay for our newspaper to be delivered basically pays for the delivery and some of the printing costs. That’s it. To dismiss questions from reporters or to try to demean their choice of career because he thinks they are just trying to earn more money for their company’s stockholders is unfair and ignorant. Ventura just doesn’t want to have to explain himself in a forum that allows careful thought and provides perspective.
The other major reason I no longer support a Ventura governorship is his attempt to escape the symbolic role he filled as head of state. You don’t stop being governor when you go on vacation or when you go home in the evening. You are governor whenever you are doing anything, until the next governor replaces you. Ventura wanted to treat the job as if it was a nine to five sort of deal, allowing him to &uot;moonlight&uot; with other jobs on weekends. The result is a diminishment of the symbolic authority and respect people have for the position. He didn’t do as much damage to the office as Bill Clinton did to the presidency, but his antics in the XFL and his books weren’t appropriate.
Unfortunately, Ventura’s departure leaves me and many other Minnesotans with a big problem. What are we supposed to do now? I have no interest in the Republican Party, which is obsessed with taxes and sexuality in a way that is just not healthy. And I am not attracted to a Democratic Party that seems satisfied with the status quo in every way.
I, for one, fervently hope (and pray) that Tim Penny rises to the challenge of running for governor as the Independence Party candidate. It won’t be easy. And he would be nave if he were expecting help of any substance from Ventura. If Jesse really cared about the Independence Party as more than just a vehicle for his own ego, he would have been working harder (on the weekends, maybe?) to recruit candidates and party members over the past three years.
Having Penny’s hat in that figurative ring would make a much more interesting campaign, and would also highlight the ways that the other two parties still haven’t learned the lessons of the year that brought Ventura into power in the first place.
David Rask Behling is a rural Albert Lea resident. His column appears Tuesdays.