A Body Slam for the Reform Party

“If I could be reincarnated as a fabric, I would like to come back as a 38 double-D bra.”

-- Jesse Ventura, 1999

“As I have said again and again, I’m committed to my work as Minnesota governor. I have no desire to be president.”

-- Jesse Ventura, 2000

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Oh, to be able to take Jesse more seriously. That would be swell; it really would. After all, this man among men, this Minnesota mugwump who ran for office and won, fair and square, after serving his country honorably in the Navy, this is someone whom presidential contender John McCain--a veteran turned politician who is taken seriously--claims to admire “for telling the truth.”

Speaking candidly is often confused with speaking truthfully. There is nothing noble about many of the Minnesota governor’s proclamations, among them his insults about organized religion (“a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people”), his braggadocio about the brothels he has frequented or his desire to return in the afterlife as an undergarment.

In a world, however, overpopulated by the mealy-mouthed, Jesse Ventura comes through loud and clear, and people do tend to respond to a man when they know exactly where he stands. Garrison Keillor, the longtime wag of National Public Radio who has mocked Ventura at every turn, readily acknowledges what he calls the source of the governor’s strength:

“It is that he speaks plain English with none of the circuitous posturing and preening of public officials, who cannot give you the time of day without saying that time is a topic of great concern to them, as it is to all Americans. . . . Gov. Ventura just says it’s 12 o’clock.”

But a clock just struck midnight for the Reform Party, the not so grand old party that Ventura has been helping elevate to a major one. The wrestling governor, the mat man of Minnesota, has just done his most spectacular flip-flop. Who would have guessed that this wildly flamboyant and outrageous character would transform himself into the death of the party?

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He may be an entire state’s fearless leader, but taking Jesse Ventura seriously is still no easy task, and not only because of the ludicrous things he wore, said and did during his wrestling days. We have here, after all, a man who thinks Donald Trump would make an excellent president of the United States, whereas others of us believe the only business Trump should ever do in the White House is if the government ever decides to break it up and sell it off as condominiums.

It is as yet unclear whether this summer’s Reform Party national convention will be held in Long Beach, as followers of party founder H. Ross Perot apparently prefer, or in St. Paul, Minn., which is where Ventura’s backers have proposed it be held. St. Paul became the unofficial Reform city of choice when Ventura was elected by the people of Minnesota, campaigning as a particularly independent independent.

Now, though, there is trouble in Reform paradise. It was just last July that the Minnesota governor was a happy man at the party’s convention in Dearborn, Mich., when new chairman Jack Gargan was taking over for outgoing party leader Russ Verney. But at last Friday’s news conference, Ventura called on his constituents to bolt the party because of what he said was the Verney group’s “refusal to release the party bank accounts, financial records, meeting minutes and membership lists to the new chair and treasurer.”

In plain words, governor?

“I have come to believe that the national Reform Party is hopelessly dysfunctional,” he said. “It is unworthy of my support and the support of the American people.”

Talk about a honeymoon being over.

Ventura’s announcement came at a time when it appeared to him that Pat Buchanan was running “virtually unopposed” for the Reform Party’s nomination for president.

If a party’s choice for its presidential candidate comes down to either Pat Buchanan or Donald Trump, the convention definitely should be held in Long Beach, to make it much more convenient for party members to go jump in the ocean.

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Ventura has quoted Trump as endorsing his decision to abandon the Reform Party by telling the governor, “You’re the leader.” So much for the unholy trinity: Ventura, Trump and Buchanan. To picture any of these three as president of the United States is to imagine a three-case scenario: Bad, worse and worst.

“It’s important for us to have a viable, fairly well-known candidate,” Ventura said of his party in 1999. “I think a candidate like myself could come in through the back door and take the election. . . . But I will finish my job as governor because I’d be a hypocrite if I turned around and ran for president.”

Jesse Ventura has been called names worse than a hypocrite, so don’t be shocked if, while searching for the best man for the job, he finds him in a mirror. Jesse for president? It’s his party, and he’ll try if he wants to.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com