By Wade Keller, Torch editor

PWTorch reader Nate Stevens from St. Pete, Fla. asks: Since you saw first-hand Jesse Ventura as a governor of your state, Minnesota, how do you react to this talk of him running for U.S. President that he brought up in his book?

Jesse Ventura was not highly thought of by the end of his first term as governor of Minnesota. He didn't run for reelection; I believe he would have if he thought he would win. Losing a reelection bid would have been humiliating to his massive ego. One thing we Minnesotans learned during his term as governor that was lost during his stints as a talk show host which introduced his political viewpoints to Minnesota is he had a huge ego. He turned out to be surprisingly thin-skinned - even by politician standards. He also governed transparently on a self-centered basis. If he liked to water ski, he was against any sound regulations in the areas where he liked to ski. If he visited prostitutes in his past, he wanted prostitution to be legal.

When we both worked at KFAN radio, we had long talks about politics. This was long before he even thought of running for governor. His libertarian points of view were beginning to take shape. He liked the idea of government staying out of people's lives in almost every way. Unfortunately, when he became governor, the the libertarian perspective was replaced with the Jesse-centric vision of finding a way to justify or rationalize whatever would make his life better.

An excellent, hard-hitting but objective look at Ventura's term as governor was written by Tom Hauser, who covered his term as lead political reporter for KSTP-TV in St. Paul/Minneapolis. The book, Inside the Ropes with Jesse Ventura is available through Amazon and other book distributors. I'd definitely recommend it.

Hauser wrote: "In one-on-one situations, Ventura can be a genuinely nice guy with an engaging, if not a big self-centered, personality. His ability to get large segments of the population debating nerdy issues like unicameral government, campaign-finance reform, and per-pupil school-funding formulas is amazing. And yet, after observing Ventura up close for several years, I've come to believe he has a sincere interest in public service, but not a passion for it. That plays into one common thread through his years as governor: difficulty setting aside his self-interest to perform his job in the public interest." (VIP members can access full article from our library here: The real Gov. Ventura detailed in new book on his term.)

Ventura was often blaming the media for unfair coverage. When his underage son was drinking liquor in the Governor's official residence and throwing parties for friends, the fact that the media dared report on that was, in Jesse's eyes, a violation of his family's privacy rather than a violation of the public's trust in multiple ways (underage son drinking, teenage parties in the state-funded mansion, etc.). It turned into a silly drama with the housekeepers being fired because he believed they were leaking information about the activities within the governor's mansion.

I wrote quite a bit about Ventura's term as governor in the pages of the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter. In an August 2002 column reviewing an early copy of Hauser's book, I wrote: "To Minnesotans, though, following Jesse Ventura's reign as governor has been more than colorful. It has been revealing. It has revealed what drives Ventura (his own self-interests), what a short temper he has, how he (understatement alert!) doesn't deal well with criticism, and how he blames the media whenever he's called on a contradiction or case of hypocrisy (and there have been plenty)."

If you have a question you'd like me to answer or a subject you'd like to hear my opinion on, send it here.

Background on Torch editor Wade Keller: Torch editor Wade Keller founded Pro Wrestling Torch in September 1987. He has been interviewed as a wrestling expert by dozens of TV and radio stations across the country; he has also been quoted in dozens of major newspapers and magazines across the world. Media entities that have featured Keller in stories covering wrestling include National Public Radio, Fox News Channel, ESPN Magazine, the New York Post, Entertainment Weekly, the All-News Channel, the Associated Press, and the Washington Post. He also hosted his own weekly two hour wrestling talk show on KFAN sport radio in the '90s. Over the past 20 years Keller has also interviewed, one-on-one, wrestling's top names for in-depth "Torch Talks" and feature articles including powerbrokers such as Vince McMahon, Eric Bischoff, Jerry Jarrett, Bill Watts, Jim Cornette, Jim Crockett, Jim Herd, Paul Heyman, Ed Ferrara, Terry Taylor, Kevin Sullivan, Jim Ross, and Vince Russo; top wrestling stars such as The Rock, Steve Austin, Kevin Nash, Mick Foley, Matt & Jeff Hardy, Rick Steamboat, Jerry Lawler, Bill Goldberg, British Bulldog, Road Warrior Hawk, Jesse Ventura, and Hulk Hogan; and legends such as Lou Thesz, Gordon Solie, Bruno Sammartino, Roy Shires, Terry Funk, and Verne Gagne. He is also host of the nationally distributed Ultimate Insiders DVD series.

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