Chapter 12: Campaign, Voting and Elections
1/14/99

Perhaps the most surprising result from the 1998 general election was Jesse "The Body" Ventura being elected governor for the state of Minnesota. No political analyst predicted that the former professional wrestler, who was running as a candidate for the Reform Party, would win the election. When Ventura entered the race, the media did not treat his candidacy seriously, and he was generally picked to finish a distant third in the race. Skip Humphrey, the son of the late vice-president Hubert Humphrey and the Democratic Attorney General for the state, was predicted to win easily over the Republican candidate, Norm Coleman, the mayor of St. Paul. One state-wide poll done less than two months before the election had Humphrey at 49%, Coleman at 29%, and Ventura at 10%. At the general election, Ventura won and Humphrey ended up finishing third.

How could a third-party candidate win a general election while spending about one-sixth on his campaign of the amount spent by the two major-party candidates? Perhaps this election reveals that voters are tired of politics as usual. Or maybe voters are eager to see the governor-elect body slam state legislative leaders as he tries to push through his policy initiatives. To find out more about Jesse "The Mind" Ventura, as he now prefers to be called, go to the Jesse Ventura: News & Information web site.

For current information about campaign finance reform go to The Campaign Information Center. At the home page for this site, there is a Campaign Finance Stories clickable link, where you can find recent media accounts about campaign finances at all levels of government. For more detailed analyses of campaign finance reform issues, you can click on Expert Sources on Money and Politics.

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