As a professional wrestler, a bit actor in action movies and a radio shock jock, he has always managed to put fans in the seats. But he clearly outdid himself in Tuesday's gubernatorial election. Ventura a Guess. Ventura was the talk of the town, here and elsewhere, someone who has remade himself into one of America's preeminent political iconoclasts. In 1980, the United States Olympic hockey team beat the Russians.
Dreams do come true in America.
Nearly 63 percent of the voters in this state went to the polls, rivaling turnout in a presidential election year. But Ventura's surprising win was more than folkloric. It offered real lessons on campaign finance reform and demonstrated the possibilities that come with decoupling money from politics. That is what Minnesota sought to do nearly a decade ago when it enacted reforms to limit campaign spending while providing third-party candidates with a public subsidy if they receive at least 5 percent of the vote in the state's September primary. That, as much as anything, got Ventura's cash-poor campaign into the game once he received 10 percent of the vote in the primary, political scientists, pollsters and party officials said.