Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [37]
Perot never said no directly, but he couldn’t seem to look any of us in the eye. When we left the room, I immediately turned to Dean Barkley and Doug Friedline and said, “He’s not going to help us one bit.” I could read it in his body language, and the tone of his voice. At that point, I knew that this Reform Party was bogus. It’s all about Ross Perot, and anything that threatens him is going to get squashed. He never did endorse me for governor that year. And I never saw him again.
I couldn’t make it to the third annual convention of the Reform Party in the summer of ’99, because my plane got delayed due to bad weather. My back was killing me anyway, from an injury I’d suffered playing golf a few days earlier. I did address the delegates by phone hookup from my ranch, and told them that we owed Perot a great debt as the party’s founder. When Perot gave his speech, he didn’t even mention my name. But our candidate, Jack Gargan, got elected to party chair over the Perot wing. And the Reform Party became eligible for almost $13 million in federal funding for the 2000 presidential election.
I’d already made it clear that I would not go for the presidency that year. As the millennium dawned, I’d only been governor for one year. I’d made a four-year promise to fulfill my obligation to the state of Minnesota. I didn’t believe that, all of a sudden and for your own personal political gain, you start campaigning for another job.
There was only one person, I decided, that I would break my promise for. At the time, it was John McCain.
When Senator McCain came to see me in Minnesota early in 2000, he had just begun taking on George W. Bush. He was going hot and heavy, with the very distinct possibility he would get the Republican nomination. I was supporting him, because I believed then that a veteran, like him, and a moderate—which he no longer is today—was what the country needed.
We were sitting in my office when I looked McCain in the eye and broached a possibility. “Senator,” I said, “if you will quit the Republican Party, I will break my promise to Minnesota and I will run with you. You for president, me for vice president. And we will win the 2000 election.”
He smiled and said, “Well, I’d love to have you on board, but I can’t quit the Republican Party.”
I said, “Well, if you can’t do that, then I can’t join you. Because I will not join either of these parties.”
He repeated, “Well, I won’t quit the Republicans.”
I said, “Okay, so be it.”
That’s where it ended. We went out and met the press and smiled for the cameras. I respected McCain; he didn’t have to give me a reason why. I would have loved to have seen him break free then, because the possibility was there. If he and I had run together, I think there’s a strong chance we could have won as independents. I’ll always remember flying into New York City that same winter. I was in a limousine heading into Manhattan in the middle of the night, with the window down, when we passed by a construction site. One of the workers recognized me, pointed, and said, “Hey—the wrong governor is runnin’ for President!”
So I believe it was wide open in 2000. Neither candidate, Bush or Al Gore, really inspired anyone. But, of course, McCain knows Karl Rove and the Republicans better than I do. They sabotaged his candidacy a couple of months later, spreading false rumors that cost him the South Carolina primary.
Now that Bush’s term is almost up, the right-wing Republicans have resurrected McCain. I wouldn’t make my offer again today, I’ll tell you that. Not to an arch conservative who still supports the Iraq War.
Not too long after my meeting with McCain, I called a press conference.
Headline: VENTURA QUITS REFORM PARTY, CITING LEADERS
Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota, the Reform Party’s highestranking elected official, said yesterday that he was resigning from the party over his growing dissatisfaction with its fractured leadership.
Speaking outside the governor’s residence in St. Paul, Mr. Ventura described Party leaders as ‘hopelessly dysfunctional