We won't get our first Presidential candidate to have a brothel room named in his honour next year unless his Minnesota constituents want him to make the race, says Gov. Jesse (The Body) Ventura.
"If I turn around and run for president, then I lied to all the people of Minnesota," Ventura told the Harvard Current, a reference to his promises to concentrate on Minnesota business while in office. "So unless you can get Minnesotans to say, 'Go ahead, Governor Ventura, run for president, we give you our backing ...' If you can mobilize Minnesota to do it, then, you know, there we are."
The former wrestler is now the highest-ranking Reform Party official. He also says he's about the most natural candidate to run for the White House on the Reform ticket - a mild jibe at Patrick Buchanan, who bolted the Republican Party to run for the Reform nomination Monday.
But Ventura also told a radio interviewer he doesn't really want to do it. "You gotta want the job," he said. "I don't want the job. It's that simple."
Ventura in his way may be hampered as much by controversy as Buchanan would be. His recent Playboy interview - in which he denounced religion - brought him a firestorm of criticism, and his feud with the Moonlight Bunny Ranch over the Nevada brothel's naming a room for him, after he boasted of visiting there during his Navy days in his autobiography, is said to have some wondering whether he's a serious political force or an opportunist trying to cover his tracks too clumsily.
