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INTERVIEW: Jesse Ventura
July 14, 2008
On CNN's Larry King Live

Jesse Ventura was a guest of Larry King Live on Monday night to announce whether he is going to run for senate representing the state of Minnesota. His opponents would be incumbent Norm Coleman (R) and challenger Al Franken (D).

Larry King opened the show by saying they'd get to the big question about his senate race plans in a minute, but first he asked him about the cover of The New Yorker featuring a spoof on all of the false information being spread about Barack Obama. Ventura said he's in favor of free speech and believes it should be protected. He said he finds it distasteful and wrote it off as politics. He didn't seem to realize it was a publication friendly to Obama that was mocking those who perpetuate false info and stereotypes about him, which is kind of amazing consider it was The Story of the Day.

Ventura said it's a dirty business and cut-throat and shameful. He seemed to be setting up his excuse for not running by saying that, as if to say he didn't want to subject himself to such criticisms.

Regarding a near tie in the latest polls between Obama and McCain, he said only the Democrats could screw up what should be a huge advantage going into November. He said they voted to give President Bush power to spy on them through phone companies.

He said politics today is like pro wrestling. He said, "In front of us they pretend their angry with us and pretend to not like each other, but in the back room they're all buddies cutting deal."

Ventura said it doesn't matter to the special interest groups who wins because they have their bases covered either way as they're funding campaigns from each.

King cut to a commercial and said he'd reveal his senate decision next.

King asked Ventura if he's going to run. Ventura said he'd get to that in a minute, but he wanted to delay for a second and talk about something else first. He said he just heard a poll that included him. He said he had been at 24 percent and in third place, but he's already passed Franken despite not running. He said that's not a good sign for Democrats if their challenger is so weak that he's being defeated by a third party candidate who hasn't even announced he's running.

King asked what he plans to do. Ventura said it was an agonizing decision. He said people on the streets are telling him, "Run, Ventura, run." He said this decision comes down to his personal life and his family. He said he has to want to get into the fray and his family has to be ready for it. He said his children were attacked by the Minnesota media when he was governor. (His son was criticized for throwing parties, while he was underage, and drinking booze at the state-owned Governor's mansion.) Ventura said he was criticized for writing a book while in office, but McCain was heralded for doing the same thing a few months later. He said the media was out to get third party candidates but not the establishment candidates. Ventura said he also believes he might not be religious enough. He said he believes in the separation of church and state. He said he isn't very religious. (He said a few years ago that religion is for "weak-minded people.") He then mocked Pres. Bush for claiming he talked to God before invading Iraq.

Ventura then announced he is not running for senate this year. He said if God talks to him and tells him to run before 5 p.m. tomorrow like happened to Pres. Bush, he might change his mind.

He said part of him wanted to run very badly, but after talking to his daughter who is handicapped that she feared she'd be attacked by the media, he'd decide against it. King asked what his son was accused of. Ventura told the story of underage drinking in the Governor's Mansion. He said his son refuses to live in Minnesota because of the media scrutiny.

After criticizing Coleman, the current senator, King asked if he'd endorse Franken. Ventura said he wouldn't endorse anyone. He said he doesn't like McCain or Obama, either, and probably won't even vote in November. When King encouraged CNN viewers to sound off online on whether they'd vote for Ventura, and maybe they could change Ventura's mind before tomorrow, Ventura told King it's not about winning, it's about his family.

After another commercial break, Ventura talked about the economy faltering. He said his whole campaign would have been built around the deficit. He said neither party is bringing it up. He said supporters of the Iraq war didn't feel any pain and paid no price at first, but you might want to ask them now how they like the war now that the economy is hurting badly in part because of the war.

After a clip aired of Obama endorsing personal responsibility, Ventura said he agrees with all of that, but his problem with Obama is his desire to raise taxes.

King asked if Ventura would serve Obama if he became president and asked him to serve in his administration. Ventura said he's a patriot and he would answer the call of the president with serious consideration.

Regarding oil drilling proposals, he said follow the money. Ventura reiterrated he might not vote because neither candidate represents him as a social liberal, fiscal conservative. He said Republicans haven't even been fiscally conservative. He both sides spend equally - one puts it on the credit card, the other taxes people heavily.

Keller's Analysis: This is so typical of Ventura, it's a reminder of what his time as governor turned into. It was just a circus of Ventura blaming the media for calling him out on hypocrisy and self-centered governing. Ventura began playing the victim card, so it's no surprise he is making it very, very clear he's not running because he fears his family would be "attacked by the media." There are plenty of elected officials who have childred who aren't "attacked." The notion that the media would attack his handicapped daughter is ludicrous.

When King brought up Gov. Schwarzenegger saying flip-flopping is sometimes given a bad name, it reminded me of one of Ventura's best. The one that hit closest to home was when Ventura, before he was offered a big payday to be a special referee at Summerslam 1999 in Minnesota while he was governor, spoke out strongly against WWE's handling of the Owen Hart tragedy. He said that wouldn't have happened if wrestlers had unionized. He had been outspoken in favor of unionizing for years. So at the Summerslam press conference nine years ago, I asked him what he had learned since writing his book and criticizing WWE on Larry King Live months earlier to make him comfortable, as a sitting governor, associate with WWE. He had no answer other than saying one man can't change wrestling and wrestling will always be wrestling. When I asked if he'd at least pull aside Vince McMahon and top star Steve Austin and make his case for unionizing, he said, "No" and didn't elaborate. Vince McMahon laughed and said it was a great answer. My take: Ventura was bought off; he changed his mind because he had a chance to make a lot of money working for WWE.

I had considered myself a friend of Ventura at one time in the early-'90s before he was in political office. We met while working together at KFAN radio and hit it off. He would call me just to talk politics, and I appreciated a lot of what he had to say as he was developing his political views largely drawn from a book on libertarianism he was reading at the time we were talking regularly. I was deeply disappointed when all evidence indicated he turned out to be as "for sale" as the politicians he criticized - he just had a different way of earning his sellout money. His about-face regarding Owen's death and unionizing amounted to a payoff to shut up, in my view, and it's the no. 1 reason I lost most of my respect for him.

Later this week in the PWTorch VIP Audio section, I will be posting that entire Summerslam press conference, which included media questions from me, Jason Powell (then of PWTorch, now of ProWrestling.net), PWTorch indy reporter Chris Vetter, and even Jeremy Borash (then of a small local radio station), along with many local poltical reporters.

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