Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [23]
TERRY: This was where I had to eat crow. When they came to me with that last commercial, I said to Jesse, “You can’t run this, everybody’s going to hate it! They’re even going to question whether you’re wearing any clothes! I don’t see how this makes you a serious candidate!” I thought the “little-guy ads” were frivolous. I remember arguing with Bill Hillsman in our living room. Bill kept saying, “Trust me, trust me.” Well, these turned out to be killer ads that people just loved! I went to Bill later and said, “Man, it’s a good thing there was somebody smarter than me running that campaign!”
Bill has a sixth sense about how to communicate to the people. He’d put Paul Wellstone over the top with his ads in 1990. By the time of the last debate, which was televised statewide, I’d shot up to 23 percent in the polls. Once again, Humphrey and Coleman were jabbing at each other, this time about how they would reduce health-care costs for low-income senior citizens. Norm accused Skip of making the same promises ten years ago. I chimed in, “Ten years ago, Norm was a Democrat.” Which was true—he’d switched parties. “And working in my office!” Skip cried, taking my bait. When I challenged their budget and tax-cut notions, they got so hot against each other that the moderator tried to cut them off. I stood up and pretended to hold them apart, in this political boxing-ring.
That last weekend of our 72-Hour Drive to Victory tour, a new TV ad appeared that featured my animated action figure driving a huge RV down the highway to the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” A voice-over talked about another six-foot-four-inch wrestler from a third party—Honest Abe—who the people voted in because they believed in what he stood for.
Farm country ends after you cross the border into northern Oklahoma, and you soon enter a lush area filled with trees and beautiful rolling hills. Our dog, Dexter, a Belgian Malinois—they’re the original shepherds—sits quietly in the seat behind us, looking out the truck-camper window. Terry and I are talking about stopping before long, when we come to a good truck stop.
“Hey, honey,” I say, “remember when we all met in our kitchen at the ranch, the day after the election?”
“I thought it was pretty impressive,” Terry says, “that there were my girlfriends and my mom, kinda running the show with all your big political people.”
“But do you remember the first thing we said?”
“Never forget it. Everybody was sitting there looking around at each other, and it was: ‘What in the hell do we do now?’”
CHAPTER 3
Down That Texas Trail
“The Christian church in all its freakish ramifications and efflorescence’s is as dead as a doornail; it will pass away utterly when the political and social systems in which it is now embedded collapse. The new religion will be based on deeds, not beliefs.”
—Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, 1945
We always spend the night in truck stops. These are real Americana, a truly unique part of blue-collar America. We pull into the back and expand the camper out, among all the 18-wheelers. The drivers tend to leave their trucks on a low idle, a kind of soothing hum that lulls you to sleep. I never have any trouble sleeping in the truck stops. Usually we get there before a lot of the truckers arrive and, by morning when we wake up, the lot will be jammed.
You can stay there for free, and you get a feeling of security parking among them. I’m not ever recognized. I’ve grown my hair out and cut off my beard, and I haven’t been clean-shaven probably since the military. Maybe