Thank God. He's a thin-skinned, vindictive bully. I voted for him because I knew he was a smart fellow, and I agreed with much of what he said (even though he did some BIG 180s once he got in office.) During his campaign we were on a TV show together, and I wanted to do a little schtick that called back to his wrestling day. He declined, saying that his wrestling days were behind him - he regarded the governorship as a serious job and intended to act accordingly.

Once in office, he was the ref in a WWF match with someone named Mr. Ass.

Let's not forget the XFL, hard as we'd like to try.

Let us all remember the bizarre time when he called in a local wildlife / hunting reporter with whom he'd had disagreements, told him he had a file on him, then badgered the reporter about whether he'd ever hunted the most dangerous animal, MAN. And he wasn't joking.

He did many good things, but there were constantly undercut by his boorishness, his slakeless thirst for publicity and bottomless self-regard. I was glad to see him elected and I'm glad to see him go.

Plus, his second book was called "Do I stand alone?" which always made me wonder whether he regarded himself as some sort of cheese.

Jesse never thought he would win. He ran as a None Of The Above candidate. It was apparent on the night of his victory and soon became obvious when he dropped all pretense of being a libertarian. He became just another Good Government type.

His biggest problem thoughout the years was his childish reactions. His decision not to run is just such a one. It is probably for the best, however, as the debates would be nasty, embarassingly so. He would be taken seriously this time around and the other parties would do whatever it took to get under his (far too) thin skin.

I'll regret him not being around because he was such a thorn in the side of the various earnest know-it-alls (see Star Tribune editorial pages). I also liked how he asked the education lobby to justify its endless requests for more money with no strings attached.

He was fun to have around for a while, but I guess in the end he was no different than any other pol... hmm, I wonder if this is a trial ballon to gauge whether a run is worth it or not...

This does raise a question. Is there any such thing as a politician we can like? Or, no matter who they are, or, from whatever party the best we can do is make sure he or she does not go out of control? Should we put our faith in individual politicians or just use them for idea generation and let the political process do the rest? Or do we want only real insiders who know the system and all the players and can manuever legislation through the system?

he hasn't done a bad job. i feel sorry for him, and i'm glad he's not running again for his own sake. he just wanted to help shake up the dodgy politics up here, but he had no idea what he was getting into.

and i like his thin-skinned-ness. it's so great when he fucks with the press. "going hunting this weekend, jesse?" "yeah, with my ak47. wanna come?"

For this Australian thats kept a vague eye on Ventura from afar, would it be fair to say that he was better, worse or no different from having a generic politician in charge?

i think he did much better than either of the old-boy network candidates would've. does that count?