On May 31, Jesse Ventura says he may run for President in 2016. He spoke to the press in Minneapolis. If he does run for President, it apparently will be as an independent candidate. He is also speaking at the Free & Equal “United We Stand” event in Little Rock on June 22. See this story.
Between Jesse Ventura and Donald Trump it must be a contest to see who can tease the most often and still get anyone to take it seriously.
I suspect Gov. Ventura’s window of opportunity closed several years ago. Had he served a second term, he would have been a credible candidate, but many voters today have no memory of him as an officeholder.
Jeff D.
If he does do this I would rather see him try to revive the Reform Party or at least work with some of the people who’ve tried to form an Independence Party of America. One of the great frustrations of American Politics is that the casual voter is more likely to vote for a nonpartisan independent candidate than they are to vote for a candidate who’s trying to build or strengthen an existing smaller party. If he runs an independent campaign and spends the whole time disavowing political parties who cares? Even if he wins doing that it won’t mean that much with regard to shaping the overall political condition on a national scale. I support the Greens, and so personally I’d rather he not run. I would only vote for an independent candidate if he were consistently polling 10% or better going in to the final weekend before election day. But I probably still wouldn’t vote for him because I live in New York State and Presidential years mean nothing as far as lasting ballot access goes in this state. If he does run for President I don’t think he’ll do very well regardless of what I think of him though. I say if he runs he gets less than 2%.
Especially with Howard Stern as his running mate! What a laugh!