They said it couldn't be done! This is written to the naysayers who view third party candidates as "spoilers".
My hat is off to Minnesota Governor elect Jesse "The Body" Ventura.
Politicians, bureaucrats, and policy wonks all agreed, third party candidates can't win. Boy were they wrong!
The Republicans and Democrats have had a strangle hold on the American "body" politic for far longer than they deserve. Higher taxes, lost liberty, and ever increasing dishonest and arrogant politician are about the only accomplishments most Republicans and Democrats deliver.
Reform Party winner Jesse Ventura has sent shock waves around the world. He picked up his name from a California road map and his strongest support from young men who said they ordinarily wouldn't have voted, but Jesse "The Body" Ventura defeated two professional politicians - Mayor Norm Coleman of St. Paul and the state attorney general, Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III - to become the new governor of Minnesota.
Ventura, 47, a former professional wrestler, two-tour Vietnam War veteran, actor and radio talk show host, won with a combination populist, anti-government, libertarian appeal. He was born James Janos in Minneapolis and graduated from the city's public schools. He did not attend college, but became a Navy SEAL before embarking on an 11-year career as a professional wrestler. he followed his older brother into the Navy, undergoing a grueling 22-week training regimen to become a SEAL underwater demolition team member. Along the way, he made 134 parachute jumps, scuba dived to a depth of 212 feet and swam in shark-infested waters; he's reveled in telling campaign audiences that those accomplishments would cause his opponents to "wet their pants."
From 1991 to 1994, he was mayor of Brooklyn Park, a Minneapolis suburb of 65,000 that has a weak mayor system of administration with a city manager. He lives in a large home overlooking the Mississippi River and his two children attend public school.
Bob von Sternberg of The Minneapolis Star Tribune sums up Ventura's run best:
"He decided to run for governor when the Legislature failed to "give back" (his words) the burgeoning state budget surplus, even as his property taxes were rising. That's the core of the anti-tax economic conservatism that's married to his moderate-to-liberal social agenda. He explains it as classic small "l" libertarianism."