Jesse Ventura in '04 ???

Great Debates
41

Well, from one Minnesotan…

I voted for Jesse before, I’m likely to vote for him again if he runs again.
I don’t think he’s peaked. I will be interested to see if he decides to run for another term at governer, or decideds then to declare he’s going to run for the presidency and doesn’t want to leave us in the lurch by leaving mid-term if he wins.

One of the reasons he replied, when asked if he would be running in 2000, was that the people of Minnesota had elected him to be their Governor and it would be wrong to then turn around and run for President after they had shown such support for him.

-Doug

42

I was waiting for all this current Bush-Gore mess to blow over, to offer a thread on this very same topic.

You think this election is whacked? Wait till you see 2004!

I think there is a very strong likelihood that Ventura will run; and I also think he will do incredibly well nationwide with folks of the same ilk as those who really carried him in Minnesota - young people and voters who saw him as a ‘No’ vote against the establishment.

We just had a presidential race where half the nation’s population didn’t care to vote, and the other half were a 50-50 split.

Given the partisan rancor and gridlock that is most likely coming, there will be a lot of people ready to cast a ‘none of the above’ vote in 2004, who couldn’t care less what Ventura’s stance on various issues and his past personal life and statements. They will fall all over themselves to go out and register and vote for him, which they will see as a protest vote against the two establishment parties.

His cause will be especially bolstered if his campaign is fueled with Ross Perot, Reform Party money, which is very likely.

You’ll be looking at a winning president who may have less than 40 percent of the vote; and certainly less than the majority of all electoral votes cast. This would throw the election to the House of Representatives.

You think Democrats and Republicans there have the guts to vote for Jesse Ventura for president if he is the leader among the three? It would certainly be interesting.

There will be a lot more intrigue as well.

**Will there be a big push for Hillary to be the Democratic nominee? **(I think this would be dumb, for reasons other than my admitted dislike for her. She would be well-served to carve a reputation for herself as a good Senator before continuing the climb up the ladder.)

Will it be Gore again (He can argue that he received more votes for president than any candidate in U.S. history. But many Democrats will be leery of him because of the process that’s going on right now, IMO. Don’t know if the “Sore Loserman” persona will stick on him with the public. Maybe this will somehow resurrect him, ala “The New Nixon” after he lost in 1960.)

Will the Democrats go for someone other than Gore or Hillary? (I personally think they would be wise to divest themselves of Clintonian taint. But who would they go for? I would see someone like Bob Kerry as being possibly formidable.)

** The wild-cards: Nader and McCain.** Will Nader give it another go-round? Will McCain think about the top job again? The Bush camp should fall to their knees and thank McCain for his late campaigning on Dubya’s behalf despite the way he was trashed in the campaign and maligned as not being a good Republican. McCain has vowed “to leave blood on the floor of the Senate” if campaign finance reform isn’t finally addressed. He may get miffed at his Republican counterparts, who aren’t likely to be all that supportive of it.

(If he would have shifted to the Reform Party and ran against Bush and Gore this time, I bet we’d be talking about the McCain transition right now.)

Anyway, both Nader or McCain could really throw a monkey-wrench into the 2004 election, and could play a huge role if the vote is divided almost into thirds with a Ventura Factor.

43

IMHO time: I can’t see ANY third-party candidate getting out of the statistical noise next time, not when the value of single votes has been made so clear. Historically, NO third party has gotten traction without standing FOR something that the majors have ignored or rejected or tried to finesse. Nader and Buchanan and others this year, and Ventura 2 years ago, tried to make campaigns about not being major-party candidates, not being beholden to anyone, and not having their hands dirty from actually trying to accomplish something. But in the end, they mainly got support from people who just wanted to object to the process for the fun of objecting, or generally thumb their noses at the people who DO try to get things done.

Quit dreaming about Reform; they’re so dead they even nominated Buchanan, and their matching funds are gone. Perot served his purpose by getting deficit elimination on the major parties’ agenda, and there’s no substance left.

Quit dreaming about Green; that was an ego vehicle for Nader, and his supporters are (I think) coming to see that their best chance of actually accomplishing what they want is with the Democrats. How much of the vote did he wind up with this time, anyway? 3 percent or so? So what? Now, there may be a long-term future for the Greens as a sort of lobbying group for environmental causes, but not with an egocentric candidate who hasn’t made a life’s work out of them.

Quit dreaming about Ventura or any other outsider candidate, under whatever label; he got elected by people who usually didn’t vote at all and wanted some comic relief instead of actual changes. What has he DONE, not just said, so far anyway? Don’t forget the difficulty any independent executive has getting things done through a legislative body with neither party owing him even titular loyalty.

Anyway, I look for Gore to be the Dem nominee again in '04. Either he’ll get the incumbent’s near-automatic selection, or he’ll look so good next to the bumbling Bush (not to mention looking like the rightful winner anyway) that no one in the party would seriously oppose him. If he’d lost be significant margin, he’d be banished to Loserville already, but he can’t be convincingly labeled a loser if he didn’t clearly even lose.

What’s with the certainty that Hillary would run then otherwise, anyway? Does that stem from the hard-right vitriolic view that the Clintons are simply so power-hungry that they’ll do anything to get the White House back (presumably compared to the GOP candidates, who only want it so they can do what’s best for the country) etc.? Or do they really think a freshman Senator would be the Democrats best chance of winning?

44

You miss the point. I don’t think he’d be effective either. Nor do I think he’d have much of a message, other than “I’m not them.” The people who will carry him won’t care. That message alone may be enough to split this election almost into thirds in '04.

Ventura has a high level of name recognition (which will only get higher when he’s on network TV in prime time every week starting this February when NBC starts televising the XFL).

And the Reform Party may not have matching funds, but Perot still has billions. If he thinks Ventura will carry his agenda in whole piece into Washington, and seize back the Reform Party from Buchanan’s hijack, I bet Perot would bankroll a Ventura campaign.

Those who have disconnected from the two major parties will fall all over themselves to vote for someone as flamboyant, no-nonsense and straight-talking as Ventura. Even if he has nothing to say. Just as a way of flipping the middle finger to the Democrats and Republicans. If this sounds far-fetched, remember, it did in Minnesota, too.

As for the Hillary thing: I’ve heard the TV talking-heads talk about her potential candidacy. Probably because the Democrats would, I’d imagine, love to be the first to put a powerful, charismatic woman at the top of the ticket.

She hasn’t said anything to this effect as far as I know, so it’s all purely speculative (and highly unlikely any time soon).

45

I don’t think I miss the point at all. The disaffection with the major parties, the none-of-the-above vote, you speak of was supposed to happen this year, wasn’t it? The alleged widespread disgust with partisan games, gridlock, fundraising etc. was the basis for the Nader and Buchanan campaigns, but it didn’t add up to more than about 3 percent. That’s enough to tip the difference between the 2 major parties that were alleged to be interchangeable and hopelessly corrupt, but it’s not enough to get much respect on its own.

So what’s going to be different about the situation in 4 years that it will “split this election almost into thirds in '04” ? One thing that WILL be different will be the realization of the value of individual votes in presidential elections, a factor that seems to me will work against none-of-the-above candidacies. That’s even true for charismatic ones like Ventura - his support in Minnesota apparently came, from the exit polls I recall, from people who mostly wouldn’t have voted at all otherwise. If you’re not charismatic, then you can’t even put a credible candidacy together from among people who don’t vote.

Not as much as the Republicans would, I suspect. THEY’RE the party with the gender-gap problem with support from women. I really think Elizabeth Dole’s alleged candidacy was a ruse by the RNC senior statesmen, one of whom she’s married to, just for image purposes. Part of my reason for thinking they’re capable of that, and lack widespread sincerity about it, is the minstrel show they put on at their convention.

46

I don’t think Nader and Buchanan are good similes for a Ventura candidacy, though.

Nader, essentially, is a farther-left Democrat.* Buchanan is a farther-right Republican.

This is all just speculation; but I think Ventura would be seen differently than those two, as more of an iconoclast. And his wildly flamboyant, outspoken and charismatic image will be so different than all the other politicians who play by the rules, that it will, IMO, activate enough people in the disinterested 50 percent of the country to make a big difference.

More like Perot in 1992 than Nader or Buchanan this year. (Perot you may recall took a fairly impressive 19 percent of the popular vote in '92)

*Nader is somewhat outspoken and different from the Democrats in some key ways, but still pretty politician-like, and not all that charismatic in a way that appeals to the politically unmotivated.

47

<<<<I think he first needs to see if he can win as guv again. His novelty may have worn off…>>>>

Not just yet…his approval ratings are outstanding.

I live in Minnesota. People here love having a celebrity governor, one who appears regularly on national talk shows and has Jack Nicholson dine at the mansion. The lawmakers HATE him. He has a pretty contentious relationship with the state legislature and doesn’t know or understand the role of compromise in American government. Nonetheless, it’s the voters who decide and if he keeps going as he’s going without any major public gaffes (just wait 'til the XFL debuts), he may very well see a second term. As for the White House, I think The Body is too thin-skinned to endure a national campaign.

48

Hey, c’mon…Reagan was president. Ventura is a shoe-in if for no other reason than by being in better movies :smiley:

I’d vote for him, and I don’t vote at all, because he’s the closest thing to a candidate I would vote for. He’d be a monkey wrench, and maybe he’ll body slam OPEC after a steel cage match with congress. The Supreme Court? HA! Child’s play.

Finally, a State of the Union address that won’t feel like its cutting into prime time!

49

Can you imagine the President taking time to referee WWF games and announce sports on TV? Yikes!!!

It’d be fun to see him run, but after this year’s squeaker I agree that 3rd parties will have a much harder time in '04.