Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [22]
I suited up for the final debates. A navy-blue suit with a diamond-patterned tie and a white button-down shirt that Terry starched. The primaries were over, and it had come down to just Humphrey, Coleman, and me. The candidates were asked if they were behind a government plan to support various economic development projects. Both of them thought this was very important. I said I didn’t know a thing about it, but nowhere in the Constitution did it describe government’s business being to create jobs. To me, that was the responsibility of the private sector. Coleman called my response absurd “and actually very frightening.” But the audience went wild with applause.
Later, I was driving home, thinking about my Republican opponent. Norm Coleman was so polished. For one fleeting moment I said to myself, “This guy is beyond me. I can’t possibly compete with him.” Then it dawned on me a few minutes later that I didn’t want to be like him. There are thousands of Norm Coleman wannabes out there, who’ve all been to Political Science 101 class on how to get elected. They’re so predictable. If you were only allowed a three-minute stage to give your response, I wouldn’t take up that time with double-talk rhetoric. We all know what that is—when the candidate is done, you turn to the person next to you and ask, “What did he say? He wasn’t answering the question!” I gave truthful, simple answers. And it seemed to work.
Sometimes, of course, speaking my mind proved a bit controversial. I told the veterans gathered at an American Legion post that I opposed any constitutional amendment to outlaw flag-burning. The point was that we have the freedom to do something like that in America, and the flag is only a symbol. Besides, I told them, flagburners usually get the crap kicked out of them by construction workers, anyhow.
Another time I got asked whether I favored legalizing prostitution. I replied no, but it was legal in Nevada, and they didn’t seem to have any huge problems with it. So I’d rather imprison the people who really deserve it. Besides, isn’t it easier to control something when it’s legal? I mean, why not put all the porno shops in one place? My opponents responded that such remarks ought to outrage and frighten the good people of Minnesota, and the media made a big deal out of attacking me, too. (Not one newspaper in the state endorsed my candidacy.) I guess they figured I was self-destructing but, somehow, my popularity kept building.
At the same time, my campaign was just about flat broke. In Minnesota, there’s a system where you check off some money on your taxes to go into a general fund that gets distributed to candidates for office. My two opponents were entitled to a larger percentage, but I was supposed to be allotted more than $325,000 in campaign financing. However, to get the funds, you first had to procure a loan from a bank. Then, after the election, the government would repay the bank. The only stipulation was that you had to get at least five percent of the vote and, by the time of the primary, I was already polling at ten percent.
Anyway, with only a month to go before the election, my campaign’s loan applications had been turned down by a half dozen banks. The head of the Republican Party at that time happened to be Bill Cooper, the head of the Minnesota Banking Association. Coincidence? You tell me. The law said you could not put up your own collateral. I was in a real bind.
Then Steve Minn, a member of our Reform Party who’d been elected to the Minneapolis City Council, happened to talk to his neighbor one day over the backyard fence. The neighbor was vice president of the Franklin Avenue Bank, in what was basically the Minneapolis ghetto. Giving high-risk loans was their specialty. “Send Jesse down to us, we’ll do it,” he said.
It’s safe to say I would not have become governor had it not been for the Franklin Avenue Bank. Within twenty-four hours, they wrote up our loan.