Minnesota Elections 1998

Closet revolutionaries everywhere rejoiced this week over the election that could not have happened--the ascension of onetime professional wrestler Jesse "the Body" Ventura to the governorship of the purportedly sober state of Minnesota. Delight over the upset burned nowhere more brightly than in the gyms of Venice. It was here, along Muscle Row, that a Midwestern football player named James Janos completed his transformation into the glittering, mesomorphic, trash-talking ring virtuoso.

Closet revolutionaries everywhere rejoiced this week over the election that could not have happened--the ascension of onetime professional wrestler Jesse "the Body" Ventura to the governorship of the purportedly sober state of Minnesota. Delight over the upset burned nowhere more brightly than in the gyms of Venice. It was here, along Muscle Row, that a Midwestern football player named James Janos completed his transformation into the glittering, mesomorphic, trash-talking ring virtuoso.

The governor-elect of Minnesota wasted no time in returning to his roots Wednesday, scarcely eight hours after his improbable victory. Jesse "The Body" Ventura, former professional wrestler, was back on the air, co-hosting a live sports-talk radio show from a jampacked bar. "Jesse, I am super, super happy, yah!" said an enthusiastic caller from deep in the state's wintry farmland. "You even got my father-in-law to vote, and he hasn't done that in a long time."

The governor-elect of Minnesota wasted no time in returning to his roots Wednesday, scarcely eight hours after his improbable victory. Jesse "The Body" Ventura, former professional wrestler, was back on the air, co-hosting a live sports-talk radio show from a jampacked bar. "Jesse, I am super, super happy, yah!" said an enthusiastic caller from deep in the state's wintry farmland. "You even got my father-in-law to vote, and he hasn't done that in a long time."