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| Buchanan and Ventura share a laugh Wednesday at the State Capitol. |
Buchanan, a contender in the 1992 and 1996 presidential nomination fights, stood next to the governor after their meeting at the State Capitol and praised him as a potent adversary of the Republican-Democratic "dismal duopoly" in national politics. The comment came even as Ventura stepped up a verbal war with leaders of the Minnesota Republican Party.
Meanwhile, a pollster for California Gov. Gray Davis, who is working with Vice President Al Gore's campaign, said that 80 percent of Californians recognize Ventura's name and that three-fourths of that number have a positive image of him.
That's a slightly higher image rating than given to Davis, who won the California governor's race by 20 percentage points, pollster Paul Maslin said. Before he was inaugurated, Davis only had about 53 percent name recognition. The most recent poll, worded slightly differently, put it at about 97 percent, he said.
Another pollster, Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California, said: "Jesse Ventura is for real. . . . His name comes up spontaneously in focus groups. If his name is on the ballot, he will be a force to be reckoned with."
Buchanan praised Ventura's "courage to run [for governor] and his tenacity and ability to win," and he said the governor is "known all over the country. . . . If he were a candidate, he would have a dramatic impact."
Ventura and Buchanan both have reputations as pugnacious and outspoken populists, and they cast themselves as champions of the working class and foes of establishment elites. They differ on issues, especially on social matters. Ventura strongly favors abortion rights and gay rights; Buchanan opposes them.
Ventura said Buchanan "has had a bearing on our country. He makes people think. He has strong convictions."
On Wednesday, Buchanan attended a fund-raiser at the Shorewood home of Moonyeen Bongaards, a recent deputy chairwoman for the state GOP. He also planned to travel to North Dakota.
Ventura insisted Wednesday that he intends to serve his four-year term as governor and that he doesn't want to subject his family to the hardships of a presidential campaign. But he repeated a line he has been using lately, joking that he somehow might get elected president without running.
"If you get the most votes and you don't run, but you win, do you have to do it? Life can change tomorrow, we all know that, but I'm not opening any door at all. I stand by what I've always said: that I have no intention whatsoever to run for president in the year 2000. None whatsoever."
War with Republicans
Ventura on Wednesday also lashed out at the state Republican Party's departing chairman, Bill Cooper, and its new leader, Ron Eibensteiner, who verbally roughed up Ventura at a GOP convention over the weekend.
At the convention, Cooper distributed bumper stickers proclaiming "My Governor is Dumber Than Your Governor," a take-off on the popular yet unauthorized "My Governor Can Beat Up Your Governor" stickers.
And Eibensteiner said Ventura was nothing more than "Roger Moe on steroids," referring to the DFL Senate majority leader.
Ventura, in comments to reporters before Buchanan's visit, said he was angered and offended by the Republican negativism. "I've never met this bozo in my life," he said of Eibensteiner. "Let him come in here and make his big brash statements. . . .
"If they want to criticize my policies, fine, but there was personal criticism there . . . . My response to [the bumper sticker] is, how stupid is he then? I beat him [Cooper and Republican nominee Norm Coleman]. . . . How stupid does that make him?
"These guys are so negative, in their whole convention, they wonder why they turn people off, and they're not inclusive at all. . . . You know if you think at all different from them, you're somehow lesser American."
Republican Party Executive Director Tony Sutton responded, saying the governor's thin skin was showing. "The point we were trying to make is that on a lot of issues, we don't see a lot of differences between him and DFLers. We had to drag them kicking and screaming to pass permanent tax cuts."
