Jesse Ventura for Governor

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Jesse Ventura for Governor

Minneapolis, Minnesota
USA

RETALIATE IN '98 CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW

One of the most noteworthy surprises to emerge from the nationwide elections of November 3, 1998, was the election of Jesse "The Body" Ventura as governor of Minnesota. A former professional wrestler who had appeared alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and others in a number of action movies, Ventura had served as a Navy SEAL and in 1990 had become mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. His showmanlike antics, his outspoken nature, and his appearance—Ventura had an impressive physique and a shaved head—had certainly attracted notice; but much of the credit for his electoral success went to Bill Hillsman, president of North Woods Advertising of Minneapolis. With a budget of just $500,000—as opposed to some $13 million in combined spending by Democratic opponent Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey and Republican Norman Coleman—Hillsman and North Woods managed to craft some of the most memorable ads of the 1998 elections. The overall Ventura theme was "Retaliate in '98," and prominent television spots included "Action Figure" and "Jesse the Mind."

Ventura ran as a Reform Party candidate, distancing himself from the two traditional parties with a platform that emphasized fiscal conservatism on the one hand and social libertarianism on the other. The Ventura campaign appealed to voters disaffected with the Democrats' reputation for making government ever larger and more intrusive and the Republicans' reputation for supporting measures to limit personal freedom. Advertising took a tongue-in-cheek approach while stressing issues such as lowering property and income taxes. "Jesse hit a nerve with people," Hillsman told Kate Fitzgerald of Advertising Age. "The grass roots nature of the campaign and the basic values we were communicating got across—proving it's not about media tonnage but about impact."

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Minnesota had a history of supporting candidates outside the "political establishment," according to Steven E. Schier in Washington Monthly. Thus in 1990 and 1996, Democrat "Paul Wellstone's tie-dyed leftist insurgency" for the Senate "carried him to victory over establishment Republican Rudy Boschwitz." Hillsman and North Woods also worked on the Wellstone campaign. And "Rod Grams, as emphatically to the right as Wellstone is to the left, won a Senate seat during the 1994 nationwide Republican insurgency, defeating Ann Wynia, a conventional liberal well-known and widely respected among Minnesota's political establishment."

The tradition of dissent in Minnesota and neighboring Wisconsin, whose Governor Robert La Follette was an outstanding figure of the Progressive Party during the mid-twentieth century, went back a long way. In the 1990s this came into alignment with a larger nationwide trend that had political stargazers scratching their heads. Voters had thrown out President George Bush despite the latter's popularity following the Gulf War of 1991, and Democrat Bill Clinton had won the 1992 presidential election in part because conservative voters deserted Bush for third-party candidate Ross Perot. Democrats who considered Clinton's victory a mandate for larger government were shocked by the 1994 Congressional elections, which returned Republican control to both houses of Congress after a hiatus of four decades. But in 1996 Republicans had more shocks of their own when Clinton was reelected, and Republican control of Congress began to erode.

Enter Ventura, a candidate for Minnesota governor representing the Reform Party, which Perot had established. Born in 1951, Ventura had served with the Navy SEALs, an ultra-elite special operations force, before going on to a career as a professional wrestler in 1975. He competed in the World Wrestling Federation and the American Wrestling Association and displayed the sort of antics typical of wrestlers. A skeptical writer in Time, on the eve of the November 1998 elections, described Ventura's early career thus: "When Jesse ('The Body') Ventura starred on the professional wrestling circuit in the 1970s and '80s, he was usually cast as the bad guy. Decked out in a feather boa, sequins, and the kind of oversize glasses Elton John made famous, the 6-ft. 4-in. Ventura would flex his muscles, glower at opponents, and spit out such gems of wrestling wisdom as, 'Win if you can, lose if you must, but ALWAYS cheat!' "

In the 1998 campaign Ventura produced more priceless wisdom, such as this bon mot quoted by Debra Goldman in Adweek: "I believe Minnesota should return the entire $4 billion tax surplus to the hardworking people who paid it. I believe Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones are two of the greatest rock bands ever." Yet all clowning aside, Ventura—who in the 1980s appeared in movies such as Predator—did a creditable job as mayor of Brooklyn Park from 1990 to 1994. With the launch of the 1998 campaign he positioned himself as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal.

TARGET MARKET

David Kirby of the Advocate, a national gay and lesbian news magazine, described Ventura as "A straight-talking macho man and former Navy SEAL [who] … was the darling of fraternity boys, construction men, and other stereotypically red-blooded males. But with his libertarian views, belief in social tolerance, and friendships with gay men, Governor Ventura has turned out to be something of a gay ally, even if some of his views put him squarely opposite most gays and lesbians."

The latter was probably a reference to the fact that many gay voters favored Democratic candidates who, along with social views that were more tolerant than those of many Republicans, offered an agenda of increased government spending which was anathema to Ventura. But the fact that Ventura sat for an interview with the Advocate appeared to refute assertions that he was a right-wing extremist. His comments included this remark: "I believe everybody's a human being and should be treated with the dignity accorded to every human being."

Time listed some of Ventura's "favorite targets: a corrupt campaign-finance system, the sensationalist media, and most of all, career politicians." The article went on to note his strong appeal among young voters, but as Ventura told Kirby: "We didn't do outreach to any groups at all. Our campaign was based on no groups at all, only individuals." Certainly his appeal was strong among voters who favored greater power for the individual and less power for government.

Nick Gillespie in Reason addressed the complaint of American University historian Michael Kazin that Ventura was not a true populist because he did not attack the "ungodly 'money power'" that the Populist movement of the 1890s opposed: "at the end of the 20th century, 'money power'—indeed, power in general—is far more concentrated in government hands than in corporate ones. If populism is at all about articulating fears of 'hard-working, productive Americans,' then Ventura is a fitting spokesman. The people of Minnesota—and the rest of the United States—have far fewer reasons to resent, say, Maplewood-based 3M or the owners of Bloomington's Mall of America than they do the local, state, and federal governments that levy all sorts of regulations on them and combine to take one-third to two-fifths of their income in the form of taxes."

COMPETITION

Gillespie made these comments as part of a larger discussion that centered around famed consumer advocate Ralph Nader, one of Ventura's most outspoken critics. As Gillespie noted, on the surface one might have supposed that Nader, who had long spoken of giving power back to the "people," would have taken encouragement from Ventura's candidacy; in fact quite the opposite was true. Nader supported the idea of more government control, not less, and this put him squarely at odds with Ventura.

Likewise Ventura managed to position himself in such a way as to present both his Democratic and Republican opponents as two peas in a big-government pod. On the one side was Humphrey, son of the late Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, a Democrat who enjoyed popularity during his tenure as the state's U.S. Senator; on the other was Coleman, the Republican mayor of St. Paul. Both, as Schier noted, were "life-long government employees and officeholders. Each was personally cautious and 'button-down' in demeanor. They provided a nice gray background for Jesse's campaign antics. Every act needs a straight man, and Jesse had two of them."

In the end Ventura dealt a sound blow to both candidates, in part by bringing out disaffected voters who might not have come to the polls had the election been a straight two-party split. But Ventura still had to deal with his many critics, in particular among the intellectual elite, who dismissed him as an intellectual lightweight made up more of style than substance. Playing on the theme of a prominent North Woods spot, some of his detractors referred to him as a mere "action figure."

ON TO 2000

With the 1998 congressional and gubernatorial races behind them, ad agencies in early 1999 began to align themselves with political candidates intent on gaining the White House. North Woods Advertising of Minneapolis, whose president Bill Hillsman was widely acclaimed as a major force behind Jesse Ventura's victory in the Minnesota governor's race, threw its lot in with Rep. John Kasich in the Ohio Republican's bid for the presidency in 2000.

Republican front-runner George W. Bush, governor of Texas and son of former President George Bush, had assembled a team that included representatives from a number of agencies, including Public Strategies in Austin, Garcia LKS in San Antonio, and Alexandria, Virginia's Stevens Schriefer Group. Alex Kroll, Young & Rubicam's chairman emeritus, was leaning toward Senator Bill Bradley in his push for the Democratic nomination over Vice President Al Gore, according to Justin Dini in Adweek. Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain was working with a media consultant from Stevens, Reed & Curcio of Alexandria.

And what about the other most talked-about race of 2000, which would potentially place Hillary Rodham Clinton against New York's Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for the New York Senate seat left open by retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan? According to Dini's sources, Giuliani was likely to work with Doner Public Affairs of Tampa, Florida. Clinton's team would include White House consultant Mandy Grunwald and others.

MARKETING STRATEGY

The latter reference was drawn from a 30-second spot that followed "Flag" in the buildup to the November elections. The "Flag" spot showed a split screen, one side red and the other white. These were respectively labeled "Democrat" and "Republican," and the camera pulled back to show that the red and white were part of an American flag. As the pullback continued to reveal the flag's blue canton, a voice-over explained the need to have a choice between the first two alternatives.

"Action Figure" and "Drive to Victory" followed. The first of these showed two young boys playing with a Jesse Ventura action figure resembling a popular variety of toy. The Ventura action figure faced an enemy called "Evil Special Interest Man," who announced "We politicians have powers the average man can't comprehend!" The boy holding the Ventura doll responded, "I don't want your stupid money!" After a voice-over message, the Ventura doll pounded its fist on a desk with the help of one of the boys, who shouted: "This bill wastes taxpayers' money. Redraft it!" The spot concluded with a voice-over warning, "Don't waste your vote on politics as usual." The "Drive to Victory" spot also used the action figure, this time riding in a recreational vehicle—a promotion of Ventura's 72-hour marathon driving tour of the state during the last days of the electoral campaign.

Then there was "Jesse the Mind," which Kathy DeSalvo described in SHOOT: "Sepia-toned visuals picture Ventura, wearing briefs, sitting in the pose of [Auguste] Rodin's 'The Thinker.' Through dissolves and soft-panning camera moves, the POV [point of view] drifts around Ventura. Over operatic needledrop music, a voiceover relates the candidate's qualifications: 'Navy Seal. Union member. Volunteer high school football coach. Outdoorsman. Husband of 23 years. Father of two. A man who will fight to return Minnesota's budget surplus to the taxpayers. He will fight to lower property and income taxes. He does not accept money from special interest groups and will work to improve public schools by reducing class sizes.' At spot's end the camera comes to rest on the face of Ventura, who winks."

OUTCOME

By winning the November election, Ventura instantly became the nation's most recognizable new governor. In January 1999 Schier reported that "he has signed a book contract in the mid-six figures with a major publishing house, and is in negotiation with NBC for a possible TV bio-pic. Stores in Minnesota feature T-shirts proclaiming 'My Governor Can Kick Your Governor's Ass' and, more tamely, 'My Governor Can Beat Up Your Governor.'"

Also in January the new governor appeared in a public service announcement conceptualized by North Woods—and directed by Tyrel Ventura, his 19-year-old son. The spot, which he made for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, encouraged students to go straight to college from high school rather than taking time off.

In June 1999 Nevada personal injury attorney Edward Bernstein announced that he was exploring the possibility of a run for his state's senate seat, a move that, according to Bernstein, Ventura's success had inspired him to make. June also saw the NBC television movie, but as Michael McCarthy and others reported in Adweek, the film proved that "Ad agencies don't get much respect—particularly in the make-believe world of Hollywood." In the film's version of the Ventura story, wife Terry comes up with the idea of the campaign commercials while going through a trunk in the family's attic. Hillsman and other creative forces were incensed by the portrayal of events in the movie, which Ventura himself had neither authorized nor endorsed.

The elimination of Hillsman from the picture was certainly a gross omission; by contrast, Washington Monthly called him "The Man Behind Ventura." His spots for Ventura won praise from Adweek, which listed them among the best ads of 1998, and Advertising Age also listed these among the year's notable advertising. "If you don't do something out of the ordinary," Hillsman told Alexandra Starr of Washington Monthly, "it's going to be expensive and ineffective." In a day and age when it cost $20 million even to become a serious candidate for president, Hillsman had managed to get a man elected as governor of the nation's 20th largest state on a budget of just half a million dollars. "There is no reason why a presidential campaign should cost $20 million," he said. "It's ineffective communication that drives the price that high."