Opinion Sought - Jesse Ventura

Opinion Sought - Jesse Ventura more or less passed the Independence Party torch to Tim Penny last night.

Now, here's now I see it: Tim Pawlenty (Motto: "The Other Tim") is a charismatic enough guy, but he's been mostly a political tinkerer, not a visionary. He's also far from conservative. But he's the closest we have to one. And not only did non-DFL/non-IP/non-former-wrestlers get 35% of the vote in '98, but many of Ventura's voters were voting for the Ventura they saw in the campaign - a liberarian-conservative, utterly unlike the DFL-lite governor he became.

Allowing for the probability that most Ventura voters will never darken a poll again, I still see the election this way;

• if Pawlenty keeps Coleman's voters (and I see no reason he wouldn't) and
• Penny loses, let's take a wild guess, even a tenth of Ventura's voters who realize that they're really Republicans (due to Ventura's initial pseudo-conservatism), even assuming every one of Ventura's voters comes to the polls, and
• Penny captures every other Ventura voter that ever existed, and
• Moe does the same as Humphrey (which, seeing how the Greens are organizing in the heart of DFL country, Minneapolis, might be over-optimistic for Moe),

OK - so tell me where the scenario is wrong? I'll give you one place - there is no way Penny will keep all of Ventura's voters. Ventura was a phenomenon of charisma and marketing. Penny is a wonk, a political tinker, a poli-sci guy who I just can't see connecting with the Jet-Ski, hunting/fishing, Budweiser crowd that put Ventura in office.

I'd like to print a selection of reader letters on the subject. Write me, and let's pick the next Governor.