Ventura Won’t Say Whom He Likes, but He Likes Kerry

Former Gov. Jesse Ventura now supports Democrat John F. Kerry for president. You’ll just have to take Angus King’s word for it.

In a bizarre news conference Friday in the Capitol complex, Ventura stood silently next to the former Maine governor in an event billed as “Independents for Kerry.”

King said Ventura wouldn’t be talking but had authorized King to answer questions on his behalf. Ventura, King said, had changed his mind after saying in September that he didn’t like either of the candidates.

Asked if Ventura’s presence meant he was endorsing Kerry, King replied: “Yes.”

“He came here today, and he didn’t just happen by,” King said.

When reporters tried to question Ventura directly, he pursed his lips, shook his head and motioned toward King.

Organizers said they weren’t sure Ventura was even going to show up for the news conference until it started.

He served one term as Minnesota’s governor, but declined to run for a second in 2002, citing media intrusion into his family’s life. Since then, he has served as a visiting lecturer at Harvard and for a time as an MSNBC talk show host.

In September, he told a college audience in Illinois that he wouldn’t vote in the presidential election because he didn’t like Kerry or President Bush.

“Look at the position I’m in,” Ventura told the crowd. “If I vote for John Kerry, I’m going to get my taxes raised.”

Bush, he said then, wouldn’t get his vote because of the president’s positions on social issues.

According to King, Ventura changed his mind after watching the presidential debates.