Body Slam — Jesse Ventura

Inveterate partygoers try not to think about the morning after. For it is then they will realize that telling off the boss, such exhilarating fun the night before, may have consequences later that day. Or they will wake up to regret grabbing the microphone from the singer in the rented band and regaling the room with a medley of Oh Danny Boy and When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. And, oh, the lampshade on the head, and, ah, the hand on the backside of a stranger. Why? And what now?

Millions of Minnesotans awoke with such queasiness last Wednesday. Sure, the gubernatorial campaign had been a hoot, what with a no-chance-on-earth third-party candidate marauding about the state and providing some comic relief from the stiffs who headed up the Republican and Democratic tickets. But the election was supposed to signal sober-up time. Instead, the good citizens of Minnesota learned that they--or 37% of the 61% of those who went to the polls--had voted into the Governor's office a 6 ft. 4 in., 250-lb. shaved-head former professional wrestler and Twin City radio shock jock named Jesse ("The Body") Ventura.

The traditionally progressive, populist state that has given the nation such substantive political figures as Harold Stassen, Orville Freeman, Hubert H. Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy and Walter Mondale braced itself for ridicule, which had already begun. Tuesday night, CBS' Late Show with David Letterman offered its version of Ventura's Top 10 campaign slogans (No. 7: A Man in Tights Has Nothing to Hide; No. 1: It's the Stupidity, Stupid). TV news shows on Wednesday featured clips of Minnesota's Governor-elect from his World Wrestling Federation days, wearing a feather boa and perching on the ring ropes, haranguing screaming fans. Thursday morning a morose Minnesotan wrote the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Well, finally we have a Governor who knows how to execute a flying head scissors!"

But once the joking had subsided, the head scratching began. For Ventura's triumph in Minnesota was a stunning political upset with unforeseen causes and unpredictable consequences. He was the first candidate of Ross Perot's Reform Party to win statewide office. He defeated two respected, if not beloved, career politicians--Republican Norm Coleman, mayor of St. Paul, and Democrat Hubert ("Skip") Humphrey III, state attorney general and son of the late Vice President. Ventura's slogan, "Retaliate in '98," seemed an off-key way to appeal to voters in a prosperous and well-governed state with 2.4% unemployment. Retaliate for what?

Boredom seems to be the most likely answer, plus a growing grass-roots resentment of elitist politicians who govern by focus groups rather than personal convictions. Says Steven Schier, chairman of the political-science department at Minnesota's Carleton College, of Ventura: "He's charismatic, he's warm, he's colorful. Coleman and Humphrey were much more conventional politicians and provided a nice gray backdrop. Every act needs a straight man, and he had two of them." Ventura's campaign manager, Doug Friedline, says, "He's very straightforward and honest. You may not like his answers, but you're gonna get them anyway."