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Jesse Ventura (born July 15, 1951 as James George Janos) was elected the 38th Governor of Minnesota on November 3, 1998, after a career as professional wrestler, actor, mayor and radio talk show host. He ran for the Reform Party and "shocked the world," as he termed it, when he unexpectedly beat the major-party candidates: St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert "Skip" Humphrey (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). He served as governor from January 4, 1999 to January 6, 2003.
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Ventura was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He (then known by his legal name of Janos) graduated from Minneapolis's Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1969. From 1969 to 1973, he served as a Navy SEAL in the United States Navy. He returned to Minnesota and attended North Hennepin Community College in the mid-1970s at the same time he began weight lifting and wrestling. He began to use the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura. In 1975, he married to his wife Terry (the couple now has two grown children).
Ventura continued to wrestle until the mid-1980s when health problems forced him to retire from the ring. He began to do color commentary on television for wrestling, and then did the same on radio for a few National Football League teams. Ventura acted in the 1987 movie Predator, whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky Gubernatorial Candidate Sonny Landham. He had a starring role in the 1991 sci-fi movie Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe.
Ventura ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990 and served from 1991 to 1995. Between 1995 and his run for governor, Ventura had a radio call-in show in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market.
Ventura's main campaign promise was a tax refund to Minnesota residents. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed that the money should be given back to the public. In political debates, he often admitted that he hadn't formed an opinion on certain policy questions. Ventura frequently described himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal."
Later as governor, he came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, light-rail public transport, property tax reform, gay rights and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed teachers unions, and did not have a high regard for the public funding of higher-education institutions. Additionally, Ventura supported the use of medicinal marijuana. Prior to the presidential election of 2000, Ventura supported the role of third parties in national politics, and voiced interest in the concept of instant runoff voting.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House and Senate, Governor Ventura's vetoes were often overridden.
Ventura was elected on a Reform party ticket, but it wasn't long before he and the party started to find different paths. When the Reform party was taken over by Pat Buchanan supporters before the presidential elections of 2000, Ventura left the party. However, he maintained close ties to the Independence Party of Minnesota, which also broke from the Reform party around the same time.
Ventura endorsed equal rights for people who don't believe in God by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day" through this proclamation:
Supposedly by accident, Ventura also proclaimed October 13 to 19, 2002 as "Christian Heritage Week."
Because of what he saw as overeager journalists trying to make mountains out of molehills in the media, Ventura decided to drop out of the political spotlight and not run for a second term as governor in 2002. He was succeded in his office by Tim Pawlenty in a race that saw four major-party candidates (at the time, the Republican, DFL, Independence, and Green parties were all considered to be "major" by the state).
Ventura began a cable television show in October, 2003 on MSNBC called Jesse Ventura's America. The show is broadcast once-a-week, on Saturdays, unlike many MSNBC shows which are on five-nights-a-week (this show was originally planned for five-nights-a-week as well, but MSNBC executives changed their minds). Jesse Ventura's America is the only national television show filmed in Minnesota.
In 2004, Ventura started teaching a course at Harvard University for a semester as a visiting fellow at the Kennedy School of Government's Institute of Politics. His 90-minute course mostly focuses on politics, though other subjects have been included. Ventura scheduled multiple famous friends to appear for his seminars.
On March 14, 2004, Jesse Ventura appeared as an honored guest on World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) Wrestlemania XX as part of the "WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2004." Later in the evening, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who was in attendance and who affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever re-enter the world of politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura announced boldly that he thinks "we need to put a wrestler in the white house in 2008," much to the delight of the crowd. As of yet he has made no official announcement concerning whether or not he will run for President.
| Preceded by: Arne H. Carlson | Governors of Minnesota | Succeeded by: Tim Pawlenty |
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