Calling Jesse Ventura!

Is there something funny in the water of what is proclaimed on Minnesota's license plates as "Land of 10,000 Lakes"? (Actually, there are 12,000 lakes in The Land of The Sky Blue Waters.)

I ask because how many of our United States have ever, within one decade, had two such political wonders as Gov. Jesse Ventura – pro-wrestler – and now U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, comic?

Just as Reform Party Gov. Ventura, at the beginning of his rip-roaring term in 1999, had the highest approval rating of any governor in that state's history (73 percent), so the AP reports that comedian-turned-politician Franken is way ahead in a recent poll by Minnesota Public Radio and the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

The AP reports:

"In the 1980s, Al Franken was cracking jokes on 'Saturday Night Live' while Mike Ciresi, his chief rival for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate this year, was serving as general counsel to the government of India in a landmark lawsuit over a catastrophic industrial accident.

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"A decade later, Mr. Franken was writing books like 'Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot' and Mr. Ciresi was leading Minnesota's lawsuit against Big Tobacco, winning a $6 million settlement.

"Despite his impressive resume, Mr. Ciresi finds himself trailing Mr. Franken in the Democratic contest. The comedian-turned-candidate has raised millions more, lined up the most important labor endorsements and dominated news coverage.

"The offset that the multimillionaire trial lawyer is delivering a simple argument to Democratic regulars: He is more electable than Mr. Franken.

"'Al Franken has made a living calling people names,' Mr. Ciresi said in an interview.

"Democrats see a strong opportunity this year to unseat Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, hoping to drag him down with his support for unpopular Bush administration policies, particularly the war in Iraq. Mr. Coleman was elected in 2002 after Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash, and many Democrats still feel the seat is rightfully theirs."

Coleman was the Republican mayor of St. Paul when he and Democrat-Farmer-Labor nominee State Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III were both defeated in their campaigns for governor by – don't-vote-for-politics-as-usual candidate Jesse Ventura. (He is undeniably unusual.)

The AP reports:

"Republicans have appeared nearly as eager to take on Mr. Franken. For months, the state GOP and right-wing bloggers have exhumed dozens of edgy jokes, off-color remarks and sarcastic asides from Mr. Franken's long career as a comedian, writer and broadcaster. In a fundraising letter in October, the Coleman campaign asked donors for help in running against the 'vitriolic, partisan comedian' with a 'long history of fringe-left rhetoric and bitter partisan attacks.'

"Talk like that has some Democrats worried.

"'I just think there are a lot of things Al Franken has said over the years that are going to sound in some cases outrageous,' said Allan Spear, former state Senate president and a Ciresi supporter.

"'I'm afraid we're going to end up with a campaign in which the focus is on Al Franken's record rather than Norm Coleman's record.'

"The Franken campaign rejects that argument. Franken spokesman Andy Barr said it is 'a little naïve' to think the Republicans 'will throw up their hands and admit defeat' if Mr. Ciresi gets the Democratic nomination."

Time magazine reports:

"The part from regularly playing a character called Liam the Loose-Boweled Leprechaun to voting on whether to send people to war is longer than most political journeys – even those, like the candidacies of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sonny Bono, that also starred on the screen.

"He has admitted to using cocaine in his TV days, his only real habit now is Diet Pepsi.

"Franken's got an anger issue. He once literally tackled a stubborn heckler at a Howard Dean rally after the security staff failed to eject the man. And at the 2003 White House correspondents' dinner, he greeted Karl Rove with the words 'I hate you.' (Franken has said they just 'gibed each other a little.')

"Franken stumbled as the left's answer to Limbaugh. That experiment – the network Air America – has been struggling ever since it debuted in 2004."

There are no reports that former Gov. Ventura has been invited to return to Minnesota or to endorse either Franken or Ciresi. But what if he does return?

What if Big Jesse decided to return to Minnesota at the time of the GOP Convention in St. Paul in early September – and announce a news conference during one of its days?

How many of us who are covering as newsmen would not attend a Jesse Ventura news conference?

What if – just for the fun of it – (and Jesse Ventura undeniably loves fun) – he called a news conference just outside the GOP National Convention to endorse Democrat Al Franken for U.S. Senate – whether Franken likes it or not?

The mind boggles at such comic possibility. Can you imagine:

• "My-Governor-Can-Beat-Your-Governor." Ventura, aka "Jesse-The-Governing-Body" arriving in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention and delivering his unique brand of insults to Sen. Coleman – whom he once defeated – before a packed Jesse Ventura news conference.
   
• At his Vote-For-Al-Franken news conference, Jesse reiterating his support for sodomy rights, abortion rights and the public use of medicinal marijuana.
   
• Also: An attempted re-explanation of why he "did not intend to be taken seriously" when he announced: "Minneapolis is the better of the Twin Cities: Because those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen!"
   
• Also: Will the former governor reiterate his contention that the media are "jackals" – which insult he ordered printed on all the media's press cards, which were required for them to enter the governor's press area.
   
• And finally, what will fellow comedian Al Franken do if the former governor of Minnesota calls on candidate Al to agree with him in his statement:

  "I voted in hopes to make prostitution legal once, and I'd do it again in a second!"

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