When is Jesse governor?
Should a kindergartner ask their teacher who the governor is, the teacher may have to first glance at their watch.
Unlike previous governors, Gov. Ventura has brought a timecard approach to governance. That is, he apparently draws distinctions between what he does as governor and what he does off hours.
Ventura’s self-partitioning can be confusing to watch — at least to the public.
For example, at a World Wrestling Federation press conference at the Target Center earlier this summer, Ventura refused to shake the hand of the WWF’s erstwhile chairman Vince McMahon.
The question is, did Ventura refuse McMahon’s hand acting as governor or as a former pro wrestler back in the fold? If acting as governor, the refusal might be seen as a condemnation of the raunchy wrestling federation.
If Ventura was acting as a pro wrestler, the gesture was just heavy-handed stagecraft.
But who was that figure up on stage?
According to the administration schedule, Ventura was on vacation the day of the press conference so apparently was not acting in an official capacity.
If this logic is true, it’s too bad the press conference wasn’t more neatly packaged. Ventura might have then attended during coffee break, saving a vacation day.
Of course the idea that elective office is just another job is shaky at best. It takes skill to be bus driver, for instance, but it doesn’t take a general election.
Still, Minnesota Planning Director Dean Barkley not long ago on Channel 2’s “Almanac” said the problem is that the state political establishment just doesn’t understand Gov. Ventura.
That may be true.
At least none those luckless wretches holding office have been able or willing to amass the big bucks Ventura has or will gather through a book deal and recent guest appearance as referee on the WWF.
Perhaps the distinction between off hours and official duties isn’t as ironclad as some may want to believe.
But what does all this mean to the prospects of Ventura’s future governance?
If Ventura continues to draw these strange distinctions between his office and his actions, people will ultimately give up trying to figure out what role Ventura is temporarily filling.
Instead of clarity, a kind of permanent uncertainty will shroud the governor office.
Perhaps that’s exactly what Ventura wants.
In the long run, this crafted fuzziness will exact a toll.. After all, why should voters lend anymore importance to Ventura’s opinions on light rail over his opinions on light beer.
When things are blurry, they’re all the same.
Perhaps one of more startling aspects of Ventura’s self-serving behavior is the effects it’s having on the invigorating ideals he supposedly represents.
To have Dean Barkley, one of the driving forces of the Reform Party in Minnesota, shrug off his boss’s rampant opportunism suggests the party’s greatest victory may also be its greatest ideological defeat.
One thing’s for sure, Minnesota has never before had a governor the likes of Jesse Ventura.
Recent polls suggest that most Minnesotans approve of their governor. Then again, people are perhaps no longer looking very close anymore.
