ABSTRACT
I remember when I first heard of Jesse Ventura's campaign for governor of Minnesota. As a subscriber to a mailing list for people interested in the American Reform Party, a splinter of Ross Perot's Reform Party that broke away over disagreements about Perot's authoritarian tendencies, I received an e-mail message on March 1, 1998, from Ventura's fledgling campaign. It announced the creation of a Ventura website and invited me to sign up on the JesseNet, a list for campaign volunteers. "A pro wrestler for governor?" I thought, amused. A young colleague of mine in Washington, D.C., who was a pro wrestling fanatic, jumped with glee when he heard about Ventura's run. "This shows that wrestling is moving into the mainstream," he crowed. After hearing that, I'll admit that I didn't take Ventura very seriously, at first.
