With just a few days left to file for a possible Senate run, Jesse Ventura is playing coy with the media about his true intent.
In a morning report from NPR, Jesse seemed to be providing the latest inkling that he was going to enter the race:
That’s the reason I run. Not to sell books. I run because it angers me,” Ventura says.
and
All you Minnesotans, take a good hard look at all three of us. And you decide, if you were in a dark alley, which one of the three of us would you want with you.
Of course, as Jesse is prone to do, later in the day he told people the press didn’t get his quotes right:
I gave [NPR] the reasons why I would run,” Ventura said. “But I said ultimately, it will come down to whether I want to change my lifestyle and go to that lifestyle or not.
As I’ve said before, I would really like to see Jesse run. If he actually files I won’t have any problem finding things to write about until mid November!
That said, I went back and looked at the most recent poll from Rasmussen showing a three way Minnesota Senate race. The short take on the poll shows Coleman winning a three way race and Jesse taking more from Franken than Coleman. In fact, with Franken’s ongoing revelations of “oops I forgot,” I wouldn’t be surprised that Franken goes further down as more of his support gives up on him and moves to Jesse who is really Dem lite. The revelation in my latest look at the poll is in the favorable/unfavorable ratings for each of the candidates.
The voting percentages for each of the candidates is roughly equal to 100% of their “very favorable” percentage and about 1/2 of their somewhat favorable percentage. This obviously works in Coleman’s favor as he has a total favorable of 51%. We’ve known for a while that Franken is a very unhappy man and it appears that Minnesotans recognize that in that 50% say they have an unfavorable opinion of him. The “revelation” was in looking at Ventura’s. Ventura’s unfavorable rating is 62%! and 38% have a Very Unfavorable rating of him!
In today’s NPR report, University of Minnesota political scientist Lawrence Jacobs says Ventura could win:
He’s coming in with about a quarter of the vote, and he’s not even declared his candidacy. That is much better than where he was in 1998, where he started off in single digits and frankly was a joke candidate
Jesse may be starting from a better place but today, unlike his last run, people in Minnesota know Jesse. For Jesse to win he would need to convince a lot of people that the charicature that was Jesse as Governor is no longer the charicature that would be a Senator. That will take A LOT of convincing.
Oh, and did I mention that Jesse is a 9/11 truther? I’m sure that fact alone will help his cause significantly!
I’d go it alone; all three of them would dump knives in my back at the first opportunity (though I will say that Coleman is the easiest to keep an eye on).