I Ain't Got Time to Bleed

by Jesse Ventura

  We planned to saturate TV and radio with ads during the last two weeks of the campaign. Bill Hillsman designed our ads, and they were phenomenal. They were risky, cutting edge, innovative. Bill wrote our campaign song to the theme from the movie Shaft: “While the other guys were cashing government checks, he was in the navy getting dirty and wet.” Bill had me pose as Rodin’s The Thinker in one ad. In another, he had me as an action figure, battling Evil Special Interest Man. The action figure told Evil Special Interest Man, “I don’t want your stupid money!” Bill’s ads were so good that three of them went on to win national awards for political advertising.

  Also, we knew that I could be very attractive to young people, who hadn’t yet become part of the system at all. So we focused a lot of the campaign on them, urging them to take the opportunity to become part of the system, to make their voices heard. As it turned out, their response was greater than we could possibly have predicted. As Phil Madsen, my Internet guy, kept saying, “The election gods are smiling on you.” So much of it went exactly as we planned it. The rest was just sheer luck.

  My young supporters were the force behind JesseNet, the online network of supporters who kept each other informed of campaign news and developments. In fact, people are now studying the use of the Internet in my campaign to see what other applications it might have—the Internet had never been used that way before in a political campaign.

  As spring turned to summer, I realized it was time to start looking for a running mate. The early polls said I was running four to one, men over women. So I realized it would be a good idea to bring some estrogen into the campaign to balance the testosterone. This is business; this is chess; this is war. You have to find your weaknesses and solidify them. It made sense to pick a woman as a running mate.

  I also understood that education is extremely important to the vast majority of Minnesotans, so since I had no background to speak of in that area, I needed to pick an education expert. We sent out our feelers, and we found someone who was perfect: a sixty-four-year-old, award-winning elementary-school teacher and education advocate who carried herself with authority and dignity and had a straightforward, gentle, no-nonsense approach to education. Her name is Mae Schunk. I met her at Denny’s over lemonade one day. She fit the bill perfectly. She was a trouper through the whole campaign, an absolute pleasure. To this day we get along great, and we communicate well with each other. When I announced Mae to the press, they quickly dubbed us “The Body and the Teacher.”

  To tell you how remarkable she is, the very day after we won the election, she went back and taught her class! She called me that night and said, “Jesse, I’m going to have to resign from my teaching job. When do you think I should do it?”

  I said, “Pretty quick! Like tomorrow? We’ve got to get over to the capitol!” That was the hardest thing for Mae, leaving her class. Politics is all new to her, but she’s learning fast. And she’s educating me on a lot of issues.

  As summer wore on, I started appearing at as many public functions as I could: In every little town that had a parade, we were there, marching along and passing out literature. We were very grassroots. But as it got toward primary time in September, we realized we were in bad shape financially. Contributions were still barely trickling in. That’s when the campaign got a huge, unexpected boost that literally put us on the map: the Minnesota State Fair.

  The fair ran for the last week or so of August, right before the primaries. All of us candidates had our booths. It was the first time in the campaign that I really got a sense that I had a chance to win. Coleman and Humphrey were on bullhorns, trying to drum up interest and draw people in. My booth was overrun with people. We passed out 43,000 pieces of literature. We went through almost 8,000 bumper stickers—we couldn’t keep them in stock! We went through 6,000 buttons. People who bought our Ventura for Governor shirts were stopped a dozen times during the day by people asking where they got them.

  On one of the last days of the fair, I ran into Norm Coleman. Jokingly, I said, “Hey, Norm! Look at my booth—I think I’m gonna win this one!”

  He just shook his head. “Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. Rest assured, the winner of this election is going to be a Democrat or a Republican.”

  I just shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  In spite of all this support, in spite of all the signs that were pointing to our victory, there was one major obstacle that still threatened to kill the campaign dead in its tracks: money.

  Getting the campaign funded was another major battle we had to win. We knew that we’d need to raise at least $400,000 for the campaign, so we decided to see if we could qualify for Minnesota’s Political Contribution Refund. To qualify for PCR money, your party has to have had at least 5 percent of the vote, and you have to have raised $25,000. We’d always had our 5 percent. The donation money we received at the state fair put us over the top of the $25,000 mark. But here’s the catch: They don’t release the PCR funds to you until December—after the election! So you have to find a way to bankroll the money until then. You have to get a loan.

  You want to hear a great example of how the good-old-boy network protects itself? This PCR fund was probably created by some politician to make himself look good, probably in response to public outcry over how difficult it is to get a third-party candidate into a fair race. It was also created, so they say, to wean candidates off of special-interest and political-action-committee money, so that more people can get involved without having to sell out to PACs in order to raise the money to run. So the fact that this money is available made the politicians who created it look real good. But then they built all kinds of loopholes into it. They made it so that the money is almost impossible to use!

  We were qualified for it. We just needed to get somebody to bankroll us until December, when the money would be released. So we went out loan shopping. Our first stop was Mr. Perot, since the Reform Party had given us their blessing. But for some reason, Perot didn’t want to help us. When it came down to cold, hard cash, suddenly the party lost interest in me.

  I couldn’t understand. Earlier in the year, the party was all for me. They were even trying to get me to fly out to their convention in Atlanta. I didn’t want to fly all the way to Atlanta at my own expense when I was in the middle of putting together a campaign! But when I told them that, they offered to fly me out themselves. They footed the bill for the whole trip! They were willing to do that, but when we needed money to actually make the campaign happen, they turned a deaf ear. I’ll never understand that. I even had a private meeting with Ross Perot—you know he has the clout to set up that kind of loan! I told the party point-blank, “I can win this. The money’s there; it’s guaranteed! I just need you to back the loan.” They did nothing to help us. Nothing. Zero.

  It brought back memories of the time I’d tried to unionize the wrestlers—they were all for it as long as there was no risk to themselves. But as soon as the chips were down and somebody had to take a risk and make a stand, I was alone.

  So we started going to banks around the state. We went to eighteen different banks, but none of them would loan us the money. Now how could that be? The repayment of the loan is guaranteed—it’s already sitting there ready for disbursement, backed by the government. And still, somehow, that wasn’t seen as a safe enough risk to these bankers. We even had an insurance company that was willing to insure the loan for $25,000. And we still couldn’t get a bank to lend us the money.

  I wonder why? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the head of the Republican Party in Minnesota is the head of one of the banks? I’m not saying that’s what was behind it. But it’s an interesting coincidence, isn’t it?

  Finally, we found tiny little Franklin Bank in inner-city Minneapolis, which was willing to loan us the money. They are in the business of making what are considered “high-risk” business loans to people of color, to help them start businesses. They have eighteen employees. Steve Minn, a Reform Party Minneapolis city council member,
put us on to them. Franklin is one of the few banks in the state that isn’t in either party’s pocket. They said, “We don’t even want your $25,000 insurance. We know you’ll get more than 5 percent. We think it’s a good loan.”

  What impressed them was that throughout the campaign, I never incurred a debt. That must have been my mom’s influence sneaking in there—remember, I came from a household where there was never a car payment! We only spent money as it became available: when we got $2,000, we’d buy only $2,000 worth of bumper stickers.

  We ended up raising $300,000 and getting $300,000 in PCR funds. All total, our campaign cost us no more than $600,000. On their campaigns, my opponents together spent over $13 million.

  Franklin Bank made the loan to us three weeks before the election. Bill Hillsman was standing by to launch the new ads, and now that we had some money we saturated TV with them. The public loved them. They were up against Coleman’s and Humphrey’s stale, recycled, traditional ads, and they stood out like beacons.

  I was the first third-party person to ever actually meet all the qualifications to use the PCR fund. Until this election, it had sat there untouched. Of course, now that a third-party candidate has managed to get hold of it and make it work, some Democrats and Republicans in the legislature think that the fund should be eliminated. I guess they didn’t build in enough loopholes! Rest assured, if a plan to do away with the PCR fund lands on my desk, I’ll veto it.

  After we got the money squared away, my focus shifted to the debates. Now, I had gone to every debate, even before we all had our party conventions in June. Norm Coleman thought he was being smart by staying out of the debates until after the primaries. Coleman was the Republican wonder boy, the candidate who had left the Democratic Party to become a Republican. Well, don’t forget that on the Democratic side, he had less of a chance to make a name for himself because he was up against the guys I’d dubbed “My Three Sons”: Skip Humphrey, Ted Mondale, and Mike Freeman, all the sons of prominent Minnesota Democrats. As a Democrat, Coleman wouldn’t have been able to get past that vanguard. The parties have become so entrenched that it’s now become a legacy, you pass it down from father to son, just like a kingdom.

  Now, the Republicans had agreed that whoever got the party nomination would be the one to appear in the debates before the primaries. But on the Democratic side, even though Mike Freeman got the nomination, all six Democratic candidates continued to debate. So Coleman figured it would be wise not to come to any of the debates while he was outnumbered six to one by Democrats. He didn’t want them to gang up on him. So he stayed out of the debates and let me take on the six Democrats!

  And they did gang up on me, to a certain extent. These six Democrats all thought, “Jesse—he’s popular; he’s entertainment; but he can’t win.” That’s what the newspapers, TV, radio, and even the Republicans were saying. So while Coleman went into hiding, the Democrats planned to have a little fun with the colorful ex-wrestler and get a few good photo ops. They were pretty bewildered when they realized I could actually hold my own with them.

  After I’d been debating the Democrats all summer, the primaries came along, and it shook down to Coleman as the Republican candidate, Humphrey as the Democratic candidate, and me as the Reform Party candidate.

  And that’s when Skip Humphrey made his major mistake, which in retrospect I think cost him the election. At that point all the pundits were saying that Humphrey was going to win, because as a fiscal conservative I was taking many of Coleman’s votes. At that point, the Republicans were coming down hard on me, trying to get me to drop out of the race. They were saying, “You’re going to get Skip Humphrey elected!” They tried to blame me instead of their own candidate! That’s the nineties; you’re not responsible for anything; blame someone else!

  So Humphrey thought he was doing a prudent thing by making sure I’d be around to keep siphoning votes off of Coleman. Right after the primary, he announced that he would not debate unless I was included. It was the fair and honorable thing to do. But tactically, it was the biggest mistake he made.

  After the very first debate among the three of us, in Brainerd, even the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press said I won it. And right there, my momentum started to take off. Every three-way debate we had boosted my momentum that much more. Coleman and Humphrey fought with each other like Washington, D.C., partisan politicians, and I sat back like I was above it all; then, when I spoke, I talked directly to the people. I discussed the issues with them. I never used notes. I just spoke my mind. By comparison, Humphrey’s and Coleman’s responses sounded canned. Michael Braverman and Barry Bloom were watching the debates on C-SPAN, and they called me up and said, “My God! You’re wasting these guys!”

  This is where my opponents made the mistake of assuming. Even Coleman admitted, “I went with the total focus of beating Skip Humphrey. I never considered Jesse Ventura.” They weren’t prepared for me. They assumed.

  It didn’t hurt that I was in direct contrast to them physically. I’m a six-foot-four monstrosity. I towered over them. These guys were puny by comparison. I deliberately sat between them. I looked strong and powerful. Neither one of them looked powerful at all. I think your physical bearing plays a large part in leadership. People looked at me and saw a leader. As a general, or an admiral, or a governor, you have to carry yourself with dignity and power.

  Coleman’s big mistake was that he also believed the pundits who said that I would steal his votes from him, so at the end of every debate, he told the public that a vote for Jesse Ventura was a wasted vote. How arrogant! How pompous! To tell someone their vote is wasted! That if you vote for the candidate of your choice, your vote counts for nothing! I’d be willing to bet that a lot of the people who were on the fence between me and Coleman got fed up with Coleman because of that attitude.

  After the third debate, the media and the public started rumbling that I was winning them all. My numbers had started sky-rocketing. So do you know what Coleman and Humphrey did then? They both started canceling scheduled debates.

  Now here’s the interesting part: If Coleman or Humphrey canceled, the people who put on the debate would cancel the whole thing. But if I canceled, the debate still went on.

  Thank God for the League of Women Voters. They sponsored three of our debates, and they said that they’d run the debates no matter who canceled. They even told me, “Jesse, if they both cancel, you can go on yourself.” Humphrey finally killed his own campaign—by not showing up.

  Humphrey had been portraying himself as the education candidate, saying that he was going to spend all this money on schools. Yet when we’d had a debate scheduled at the Mall of America with more than one hundred high-school kids from across the state, Humphrey and Coleman canceled. And since the two candidates who “mattered” canceled, the whole debate got called off. That night, Humphrey went down to a Vikings game and sat in a private box.

  About a week later, the three of us appeared at a debate at Blake High School in Minneapolis. That night, we were allowed to ask each of our opponents a question. When it got to be my turn, I turned to Skip Humphrey and, on statewide television, said, “Attorney General Humphrey, throughout your entire campaign, you’ve been stating that you’re the education candidate and that young people and education are so important to you. Then I ask you, sir, why, a week ago, when we had a debate scheduled in front of a hundred high-school students from across the state of Minnesota, did you choose to cancel that debate, and instead go to a football game and sit in a luxury suite? Please explain to me why you made that decision.”

  He just stood there tripping over his own jaw. He looked like a deer caught in a pair of headlights. He managed to stammer out something about his scheduling and how he couldn’t possibly do every debate that he’s asked to do. But then why had he agreed to do it, if he wasn’t going to show up?

  Then I asked Coleman a question that was almost as devastating to his campaign. Coleman had just been elected m
ayor of Saint Paul, and now in less than a year he was running for governor. At the time of the Blake debate, he had a bunch of ads running on TV to promote his gubernatorial campaign. I said to him, “Mr. Coleman, less than a year ago, I saw these same, identical TV ads running when you told the people of Saint Paul how badly you wanted to be their mayor. Now, you’re running the same TV ads, only now you’re telling us you want to be the governor. If that’s so, then why did you run for mayor?”

  I’m very proud that throughout all the debates I never used a single note. I never read a prewritten speech. I spoke from the heart. I answered the questions as I was asked them. I also did something in a couple of debates that was unheard of in politics. When I was asked a question that I didn’t know the answer to, I looked out at the audience and said, “I don’t know.” But I also said, “If it’s important, I’m a quick learner—I’ll find out.” The people saw honesty in me; in the other two candidates they saw political rhetoric, the same shit they’d been having shoved down their throats for years upon years.

  The debates really got us rolling. With each debate, the campaign gained a little more momentum. Even from the start, we never polled less than 10 percent. Now we were climbing into the twenties. Remember, strategically, I had to get into the mid-twenties to have a real shot at the election. Remarkably, when it came to Election Day, I was polling between 28 and 31 percent! By the time people came out to the polls, the press was calling it a three-way dead heat.

  Our final big push came seventy-two hours before the election. We rented some RVs, set up a live Internet feed, and headed out on a thirty-four-stop trip around the state, straight through, no sleep. But I knew from my background that I could do it—it was less than half of Hell Week!