What kind of campaign did he run?
For all his comic value, Ventura ran the kind of campaign that other so-called reformers only talk about. He raised cash by selling 6,000 T shirts at $22 a pop. Ventura didn't conduct a single poll or run up a penny of debt. His platform was mostly libertarian--lower taxes, less government--but he relished pointing out that he was the only candidate with a union card. (Never mind that it's for the Screen Actors Guild--not exactly the Teamsters.) He chose as his running mate Mae Schunk, a motherly grammar-school teacher for 36 years.
College students told Ventura they were voting for him because he was "cool." It was the ultimate compliment. "I am cool," he says. "Mentally, I'm still 21 or 22 in a lot of ways." His one concession to slick campaigning: TV ads. They aired in the campaign's final weeks and tried to show just how cool he was. One, featuring music from "Shaft," showed children playing with a Jesse Ventura action figure, who does battle with "Evil Special Interest Man." The doll, which will soon be a household item in Minnesota, was patched together with the body of Batman and the head of World War II Gen. Omar Bradley. (Yes, Omar Bradley has a doll.) The campaign went to dozens of banks before it found one that would lend Ventura the money for the air time.