Mayor of Brooklyn Park After his departure from the WWF, Ventura took a former high school teacher's advice and ran for mayor of
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, in 1990. He defeated the city's 18-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995. Many
professional wrestling personalities have entered politics, but Ventura is among the few, including
Jim Barnett and
Antonio Inoki, to have remained active in wrestling while serving in a government role: he was simultaneously mayor and WCW's color commentator through much of his mayoral tenure.
Governor of Minnesota Chamber in 2000 Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the
Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the
Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive
grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager
Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman
Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He selected teacher
Mae Schunk as his running mate. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party nominees,
Republican St. Paul mayor
Norm Coleman and
Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's
Thinker) began to resurface in ironic reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body) also continued to appear with some regularity. After a 2002 trade mission to China, Ventura announced that he would not run for reelection, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting important policy issues. He later told a
Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He said he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor , March 2000 and
Norm Coleman in 2002 In
political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." Lacking a party base in the
Minnesota House of Representatives and
Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overridden. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a
budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned. Later, Ventura came to support a
unicameral (one-house) legislature,
property tax reform,
gay rights,
recreational marijuana, and
abortion rights. While funding
public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions. In an interview on
The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including
marriage and
military service, humorously saying he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a
2012 referendum on amending the
Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner. During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial
mass transit improvements, such as
light rail. During another trade mission to
Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the
United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government. Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the events at the 2002 memorial for
Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed
Dean Barkley to represent
Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by
Norm Coleman, who won the
seat against
Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee after Wellstone died a few days before the election. as governor, Ventura returned to the State Capitol in May 2023 for Governor
Tim Walz's signing of a cannabis legalization bill. Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for
third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork." In his book
Independent Nation, political analyst
John Avlon calls Ventura a
radical centrist thinker and activist.
Assessment and criticism After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the
Minnesota Governor's Residence during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in
Maple Grove. In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to
recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the
Minnesota Supreme Court. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award. Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide
capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. Ventura had vetoed this budget, but the state legislature overrode him. This deficit received national attention, for instance making a 10-question interview by
Time journalist
Matthew Cooper with Ventura. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999. Shortly after Ventura was elected, author and
humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him,
Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the book, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the
Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously. Ventura's
approval rating peaked at 73% in July 1999. By the end of his term it had fallen to 40%.
Consideration of bids for other political offices While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running again for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on
CNN's
The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the
race for the
United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A
Twin Cities station
Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate
Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On
Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin. In his 1999 autobiography ''I Ain't Got Time to Bleed'', Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate
Ron Paul's "
Rally for the Republic", organized by the
Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in
2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the
2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an
independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the
Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. Ventura was reportedly in talks with the
Libertarian Party to run for president on its ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'." David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot. In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either
Donald Trump's or
Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former
New Mexico Governor
Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." Despite this, he later said he voted for
Green Party nominee
Jill Stein.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had." On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance. Ventura said he would
write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[d] to vote for '
the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the
2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the
2020 Green primaries. The national Green Party nominated
Howie Hawkins for president and
Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, but the
Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative
Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney
received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views Bush administration and torture In a May 11, 2009, interview with
Larry King, Ventura twice said that
George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "
President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." His remarks about the possibility that the
World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews. On May 18, 2009, when asked by
Sean Hannity of
Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to
memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what
bin Laden's gonna do." On April 9, 2011, when
Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best
we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to
these wars." ==Other endeavors==