> a reflection of the general desire for
> good public services and lower taxes. He does
> take some surprisingly strong positions --
> in favor of gay marriage; opposed to school
> vouchers, for instance.
One can't overlook the fact that Jesse's not exactly a rocket scientist, but this he freely admits. In fact, he goes out of his way to acknowledge the areas in which he has little or no experience (notwithstanding his tenure as mayor of Brooklyn Park, MN), all the while maintaining a defiant air of "I can do this, I parachuted 216 times out of a plane," etc.
He's emphatically in favor of decriminalization of drugs and prostitution, and relaxing laws on concealed weapons. ("The war on drugs is a waste of money," etc.) He wants to eliminate government-financed social programs: "Call a neighbor or relative if you need daycare - put someone you know to work...!" (paraphrasing here, but he said something to that effect), or move much of it to the private sector. So consequently he describes himself as a libertarian with a small "l".
He hired a 66 year-old, life-long teacher/educator as his Lt. Governor. He's going to put her to work on revamping public education, which he's big on. In this case at least, his interest/committment seems to go somewhat beyond mere rhetoric, i.e. he might actually do something. He wants to mainstream disabled students as well.
One Jesse mantra was returning state government surpluses (common enough in Minnesota lately) *directly* back to the people, i.e., "Write 'em a check." No redistribution into other programs, no dickering about what to do with the excess, just write everyone in the state a check and be done with it. Who could argue with that? (Well...) This may have been one of his biggest selling points.
> Who are his gurus
Mohammad Ali, and his parents, if I understood him right - not necessarily in that order.
> What I'm curious about is who was backing him.
As far as I can tell, his support was comprised of a creative combination of numerous individual contributions, state campaign funds, and a $300,000, 11th-hour personal (?) loan that enabled him to run a series of unorthodox, highly-effective ads in the last week or so of the campaign. In just over a month, the stats went from Humphrey 49 percent, Coleman 29 percent and Ventura 10 percent, to the winning Ventura 37, Coleman 34, and Humphrey 28.
His voters comprised a wide cross-section of the electorate, drawing heavily from the under-50 crowd (esp. 20-somethings) and running across party lines to an almost unprecedented extent - "liberal", conservative, libertarian, unaffiliated, etc. Of course the media plays this up, but it turned out to be largely true. It's still a bit suprising that he was able to mobilize so much across-the-board support when he was simultaneously articulating so many seemingly contradictory policies, at least as far as conventional party platforms go, without appearing like a complete schizoid. But people ran to him (except the over-60s) rather than away from him. Something for everyone I guess, and especially very little of the usual fear-factor, i.e., "Is he telling us the truth?" He's good at evoking sincerity. He radiates it, even.
But Humphrey came off like a total policy wonk, not to mention that one could see the dollars being swallowed up by the truckload with his ambitious and seemingly well-intentioned programs ($10 million here, $16 million there...), promises of the requisite *tax cut* notwithstanding - and Norm Coleman, the Republican, is as slippery as they come, a real piece of work.
So that leaves Jesse, and supposedly he'd like to rappel out of a helicopter on inauguration day. (We'll see, I guess...) Actually, his 17-year-old daughter was apparently quoted today as saying it was cool that her dad was the governor of the "United States" - but maybe that's prescient: We read today that not only are his favorite films JFK, Full Metal Jacket, and Jaws, but that he actually spent election-day afternoon *watching* JFK. A man with a mission. Actually, he swears he'll leave politics *as soon* as his work is done, and won't become one of those career politicians he campaigned against. We'll see about that, too.
BTW, it's now "Jesse (The Mind) Ventura", nix "(The Body)" - as he helpfully informed Tom Brokaw last night on the national newsfeed. He no longer makes his living with his body, hence the change...
--
/ dave /