Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [85]
I continue to muse about the political process and what’s happened to it. “You know,” I say to Terry, “it’s a myth that somehow all these career politicians are something special. My election killed that mystique. It wasn’t my career. I wasn’t created by the system that maintains only these supposed ‘leaders’ can do the job. You mean a dumb old wrestler could come in and be the chief executive in charge of a $28 billion budget?”
“We can’t have that!” Terry echoes my thought.
“By God, then people will think the gas station attendant might be able to do it! But in essence, isn’t that what we’re supposed to be? According to our founding fathers, we’re a government of the people, where you bring to bear whatever your life experiences are. Not today.”
“You’re also supposed to work for the good of the state, so . . .” I interrupt, “Today you have to be created by the political parties to lead the country.”
“Paul Wellstone wasn’t really like that,” Terry says. “But I think the saddest example of what it can all devolve into was his memorial service.”
“Oh,” I say, and take a deep breath. It was painful to remember the night. “For the first half hour, I actually said to myself, ‘By God, they’re going to do it right.’ They had the opportunity to be above it all. I guess I should have expected they’d blow it.”
Senator Wellstone was killed in a plane crash in northern Minnesota on October 25, 2002. This was only eleven days before his potential reelection, in a crucial race that might determine whether the Democrats would control the U.S. Senate. A lot of people have speculated that somebody might have tampered with his plane, but I don’t believe there was any conspiracy. I remember the morning he crashed, and the weather was horrible. I wouldn’t have flown that day, especially in a twin-engine private plane.
Wellstone and I did not get along very well, by his choosing, I think. He didn’t like me, because he’d been considered “the man of the people” and I kind of took his title from him—winning as an independent with even a more grass-roots campaign than his had been. He was quite belligerent to me once, when we were both in Washington. Toward the end, he started to mellow and soften up a bit.
Of course, I must admit I had once given him “the look.” Senator Wellstone had never served in the military, but as a politician he did a lot for vets, which of course I respected. One Veterans Day, we were onstage together at a function out at a VA Hospital. They announced to us that the Veteran’s Band would be playing the four different songs of the services—including “Anchors Away” for the Navy and “Caissons” for the Army. When a service’s song was played, they asked members of that service to stand.
My branch, the Navy, happened to be last. The Army’s was first. The Senator was sitting next to Colonel Lord, a good friend of mine, a former “helo” pilot in Vietnam. As they started to play the Army’s song, naturally Colonel Lord rose to attention. I glanced over, and Senator Wellstone was standing, too! So I gave him “the look”—which meant, “Excuse me, senator, at what point did you take an oath to give a few years of your life to Army service? You stand when they play the National Anthem, but this is not a photo-op. This is for the guys who actually put on a uniform.”
Obviously the senator hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to what was going on. I think someone from his staff came over and whispered to him, and he then quickly sat back down.
Of course, what happened to Senator Wellstone, his wife, and one of their children was a terrible tragedy. A memorial service was held in Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota and broadcast live on national TV. A number of high profile politicians attended, including President Clinton and his wife, and Vice President Gore. I told Terry as we arrived, “I’m here to honor the