> Just got a review copy of Micah Sifry's new Routledge book on third
> party politics, which comes with a blurb from Jesse Ventura. Any
> Minnesotans on the list - or anyone else for that matter - care to
> comment on just what he's accomplished politically, ideologically,
> whatever?
>
> Doug
>From my vantage point across the border in Wisconsin, the short answer is
"very little." With the passage of time, his election appears to be a
one-off event of little lasting importance.
At any suburban barbecue or softball game, there will usually be found some person opining about what's wrong with this or that branch of government, and what should be done to fix it. The nostrums advanced by people of this sort often revolve around running (the school system, the township, the county, what have you) "like a business," as if solving the problems of government were simply a matter of managerial efficiency, and as if profit-making enterprise were the model which every organization should imitate. Every now and again, someone like this finds himself or herself elected to the school board, the town council, or mayor, and they soon find out that things aren't quite as simple as they seemed. Then they either retreat from the field, chastened or indignant as the case may be, or become conventional politicians. Ventura, for all his flamboyance and his unusual background as a low-brow entertainer, strikes me as just this sort of person.
Ventura is currently involved in an unseemly tussle with the state legislature over the budget. Minnesota is over $2 bil in the red, and they are battling over what combination of budget cuts and tax hikes should be enacted to make up for it. See
http://news.mpr.org/collections/session2002/finance.shtml
On one occasion, Ventura resorted to the childish maneuver of pretending not to be home when emissaries from the legislature and the state "revisor's office" attempted to deliver copies of an alternative budget proposal.
State government is for the most part a distinctly unglamorous business; it's mainly about delivering bread-and-butter services and figuring out how to pay for them. Ventura's theatrics don't cut much ice when it comes down to the nitty gritty of enacting a budget. With the collapse of the Reform Party, which never had much substance anyway, it's hard to imagine any political sequel--no "Ventura-ism" on the horizon.
By the way, a similar situation prevails here in Wisconsin. Our former governor Tommy Thompson, before he was translated to the empyrean of the Bush cabinet, talked the conservative, "small government" talk and spent like mad.
With the revenue shortfall in the wake of the recession, the state has a $1.3 bil deficit to make up. I work in state government, and the word circulating through the bureaucracy is that the real number is more like $2 bil. It's an election year, so no one in the legislature or governor's office wants to talk about just how serious the problem is.
Just this week, my agency eliminated 17 1/2 positions. Some of them were vacant, but 11 living, breathing colleagues were let go. I fully expected to be applying for unemployment myself. More shoes will drop in July (new fiscal year) and November (after the election). Larger agencies (natural resources, transportation, parks & rec) have laid off many dozens, with more to come.
Jacob C.