ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The black T-shirt in vogue here bears the now familiar face of a bald giant of a man with this proclamation beneath: "Our Governor Can Beat Up Your Governor."

That would be Gov. Jesse Ventura, the 6-foot-4-inch, 250-pound professional wrestler turned Reform Party candidate who jolted the political world in November by upsetting Republican Mayor Norm Coleman of St. Paul and the Democratic state attorney general, Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III, in a three-way race for Minnesota's top job.

Now, four months into that office, Ventura finds himself in a numerical mismatch as he circles the ring of state politics trying to get a firm grip on the Minnesota Legislature.

It is difficult enough being a minority of one as the only Reform Party elected official in the state government, and a political neophyte at that. Making his task even harder is the fact that the Democratic Party, called the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party here, controls the state Senate, while the Republican Party controls the House.

Since his inauguration in January, Ventura has been working overtime to try to gain the upper hand in this three-sided power struggle. In a clash of personalities, operating styles and ideologies, the split-party Legislature has been poking holes in his first budget. He is fighting an uphill battle, meanwhile, to be taken seriously as the gags about him, and his sometimes erratic behavior, continue.

While he is still given to flamboyant Western garb and rough talk in public, a visitor to his staid State Capitol office finds him conservatively attired in a dark suit and congenial and straightforward in manner as he talks about what he intends to do as the choice, and voice, of the people of Minnesota.

For all his courtesy and good temper, the new big man in state politics makes clear that in his mind, the voters are his only bosses, and he will call on them in any showdown with the Legislature.

Such a showdown could come in less than three weeks, with the scheduled May 17 adjournment of the Legislature. If it hasn't produced a balanced budget that meets with his approval by then, Ventura says, "I'm not going to call a special session. You never say never, but it's highly unlikely I would."

The new governor goes on: "I was under a time limit to get my budget to them. I could have waited until the last day [for submission]. I didn't do that. I gave it to them 2 1/2 weeks ahead of time. So for them to even insinuate that we should have some kind of special session is ludicrous."

Political consequences

In measured tones, he suggests the consequences if he doesn't get what he wants. "If they don't have the bills done," he says, "well, all I can say is, remember what happened to Newt when they shut the government down."

The governor is referring to the political damage suffered by House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his Republican Party when his budget battle with President Clinton in the winter of 1995-1996 twice closed down key parts of the federal government.

Gingrich, Ventura says, "didn't come out on the good end. I think that the president came out on the high side on that one, and I think the same thing will happen here -- that I, the governor, will come out on the high side, and the legislators will be the losers."

In this struggle, Ventura must cope principally with the House Republicans, who want a permanent tax cut, paid out of the $1.3 billion won from the tobacco industry in last year's lawsuit, to be rebated to taxpayers.

At the same time, the Republicans want more money in the budget for education, targeted in ways with which Ventura disagrees.

But the governor is not without his Republican friends. House Speaker Pro Tem Ron Abrams credits Ventura with changing "the culture around him" by reversing the trend toward more and more state government spending, and by making high-quality Cabinet appointments.

The Democrats also differ with Ventura on the basic role of government, with the governor by and large taking more centrist positions than the traditionally liberal DFL.

Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe says that "so far we've gotten along. I've tried to give him as much slack as possible. I have to believe in his heart he didn't expect to be governor. So he deserves a little more time."

Ventura, for his part, says that both major parties have learned from his surprise election. On education, for example, he says, the Republicans have dropped their fight for vouchers for private schools.

"Two years ago, it was 'vouchers' out of the same group of people," he says. "I said in my campaign I wanted to outlaw the word 'voucher.' Apparently, I've done so. I guess [it's] my leadership. They saw the light."

The Democrats, too, got the message, he says. "The Democrats took a shellacking. They lost the House, Hubert Humphrey came in third place, with only 28 percent of the vote. They're not dumb. They saw that they needed to change their positions." There is no evidence, however, that Ventura has political coattails. He campaigned for a Reform Party candidate for the state Senate in a special election last month. The candidate lost.

Legislators from both parties raise questions about Ventura's management style, saying he does not provide real leadership or direct consultation with them. Moe says the governor sees himself more as an "arbitrator" with the Legislature rather than as a leader.

Ventura counters that he operates as "the CEO of the state of Minnesota" who delegates to his Cabinet members. But he insists that his door is open to legislators if they have business to discuss with him.

At the same time, he often talks of them with the derision of a political outsider elected to break the mold of how things are done. "It's just a poker game with these two parties," he says.

"The great majority of their focus is on holding or gaining their caucus' power, rather than doing what is best for the state of Minnesota. They want their people in line." He derides "the pompous arrogance of the two parties," comparing their leaders to "my little banty rooster I have out at my farm. They kick dirt up and puff their chests out, and they cock-a-doodle-do, and act tough, and posture around at the people's expense."

'Playing bluff poker'

Against them, he says, "the only thing I'm able to do is take my case to the people, and I will do that. I can't answer for everything, because it is a poker game. They're used to playing bluff poker. Pretty much all the cards have been dealt now, and everybody's sitting with their hole card. But at some point, you've got to turn it over, don't you?"

Jesse Ventura's hole card is the grip he apparently continues to hold on Minnesota voters. His post-election approval rate of 72 percent, however, has slipped to 62 percent in the most recent survey, a Minneapolis Star-Tribune/KMSP-TV poll. And his penchant for the quick remark continues to hurt him, as when, in the wake of the Colorado school shooting, he suggested that "if someone with a concealed weapon happened to be there, maybe lives would have been saved."

But the next day he expressed regret for his comment and was commended editorially for his pullback. He says now that he's got to learn when and when not to speak out. He recognizes that he still has a lot more to learn as a governor. But it is also clear that he's not easily intimidated in switching from the wrestling ring to the more genteel arena of political combat.

Pub Date: 5/02/99