Ventura Interview Gets Media Spotlight

A Harvard student publication reported yesterday that Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura says he would consider a bid for the Reform Party presidential nomination if the state's voters would muster behind him.

The news--released after the Harvard Current magazine conducted a phone interview with the governor yesterday-- created a nationwide media frenzy, with the Associated Press placing the story on its national wire and ABC's "Good Morning America" scheduling a live interview with the Current's editors for this morning's broadcast.

But Ventura advisers quickly downplayed the significance of the remarks, saying they do not represent a change in the governor's long-held personal view on the subject. In previous interviews, Ventura has said he's not interested in running.

A Reform Party spokesperson yesterday evening said she doubted Ventura's ability to galvanize the party's members behind a presidential bid.

In the interview, conducted by Harvard Current reporters Bom S. Kim '00 and Daniel M. Loss '00, Ventura seemed to suggest that if Minnesotans mobilized behind his candidacy, he would run.

"I told the people of Minnesota that I wanted to be their governor," Ventura said. "I will fulfill my four-year term. If I turn around and run for president, then I lied to all the people of Minnesota. So unless you can get Minnesotans to say, 'Go ahead, Governor Ventura, run for president, we give your our backing...'"

At this point, according to a transcript provided by the Current, one interviewer asked, "So, if the people in Minnesota mobilize themselves to support you fully to run in the presidential elections, would you run?"

Ventura's response: "I'd consider it, but then again I got to want the job and I'd have to consider it with my family and I don't know if my family would want me to do it."

At that point, the Current interviewers thanked Ventura for the interview, but the governor continued speaking.

"Well, if anyone can do it, Harvard can, can't they?" Ventura said, according to the transcript. "If you can mobilize Minnesota to do it, then, you know, there we are."

The interviewer then asks, "What do you mean, there we are?"

Ventura said, "That would open the door for the possibility of it. But by no means am I telling you I would do it."

The Current interviewer pressed the question. "But there is a possibility, a hope?"

Ventura's response, "Yeah."

Keeping Us Guessing

Kim and Loss said they felt Ventura's comments indicated a change in the flashy governor's status as a presidential prospect.

"It's clearly a change at least in his public attitude about it," Loss said. "[Before,] he flatly ruled out the possibility of running."

But last night, Ventura's press secretary John Wodele disagreed.

"I wouldn't put too much stock in the going-ons in the presidential race and the governor's involvement," Wodele said. "From what I've read [Ventura meant only to say] he's never said never [to the possibility of running.]"

Wodele made similar comments in an interview with the Associated Press yesterday.

"If you can read this interview and arrive at the conclusion that he's going to be president a year from now,

you're in political la-la land," he said.

Ventura's comments to the Current echo what he told an informal gathering of students when he visited Harvard two weeks ago to appear on CNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews."

During that discussion, a student asked Ventura if he would consider running for the presidency. Ventura responded by saying that he didn't want to run, but the citizens of the country could still try to draft him into the race.

At the time, Ventura also reiterated his promise to Minnesota voters that he would serve out his term of office unless they said otherwise.

In an interview yesterday with a Minnesota radio station, Ventura seemed less sure about the possibility of him running.

"I'm the natural candidate to do it, but I don't want to do it. You gotta want the job," Ventura told WCCO-AM in Minneapolis. "I don't want the job; it's that simple. I do not want the job."

After being informed about Ventura's comments to the Current yesterday afternoon, Donna Donovan, the spokesperson for the Reform Party, said, the party welcomes competition for its nomination.

"If the Republicans have had eight or nine candidates, the Democrats have had quite a few, so why shouldn't the Reform Party?" she said.

Still, she noted, many Reform Party leaders have expressed doubt about Ventura.

"Many of the people in the executive committee feel that he hasn't demonstrated a high moral and ethical character that Reform Party has fostered and wants to see in it its leaders," she said.

If he decided to run on the Reform party ticket, Ventura would join Patrick J. Buchanan in seeking the nomination. New York mogul Donald J. Trump has also expressed interest in running.

Whoever wins that party's nomination would receive an estimated $12 million in federal matching funds for their campaign.

After Ventura's interview with Playboy magazine was released three weeks ago, the national Reform Party called on Ventura to resign from its ranks, citing controversial comments the governor made about religion and women.

At the time, Ventura refused to step down.

Feeding the Frenzy

In the recent past, the national press has proven more than willing to hang on to the governor's every word.

Two weeks ago, Ventura attracted more than 80 members of the media when he appeared in the ARCO Forum.

Loss and Kim conducted the interview around 11 a.m. yesterday. A few hours later, they sent a press release with excerpts to the Associated Press.

At 5:12 p.m., when the Associated Press uploaded a story quoting from the press release, news organizations around the country took notice.

At ABC in New York, producers set to work trying to confirm the story in time for World News Tonight at 6:30 p.m. The story did not air, although Loss and Kim were scheduled to appear on this morning's "Good Morning America" to discuss their interview.

Cyberscribe Matt Drudge splashed the AP report across the top of his Web site.

"It's a little crazy here," Kim said from his Winthrop House room yesterday evening, while juggling calls from the media.