Misnaming

St. Paul, Minnesota: November 5, 2002 A steaming-mad Governor Jesse Ventura appointed a fellow independent to temporarily fill Senator Paul Wellstone's seat Monday, while Ronatarian Party founder Ron publically fumed at the governor's decision. Ventura's choice of Dean Barkley, a major figure in Minnesota's third-party movement, leaves control of the Senate up in the air. The two major parties now have 49 members each, with two independents. The "even Senate" is not what has riled up the feisty Ron, but the man who "independently filled the seat"--Gov. Ventura. "Jesse owes me $50," said Ron during a phone interview on the Montel Williams show. "He said if he couldn't pay me the money in 30 days, he would repay me in a political favor. It's been six months, godammit, and he owes me a favor. Him putting a Minnesota Ronatarian in the vacant U.S. Senate seat would have done nicely." "...And another thing," Ron continued, "Dean Barkley is not a free-thinker. He goes along with what anybody tells him. He is a pawn's puppet." Upon his being named to the Senate, Barkley said that fellow independent Jim Jeffords of Vermont told him in a call, "Don't commit to anything." Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott also called in a bid to court the newest senator. Former Senator Paul Simon encouraged Barkley to wear a bow tie to stand out--and to honor the former politician's signature clothing staple. The usually off-the-wall Ron may have a point in his rantings. "...And I don't expect to see that $50 any time soon," lamented the mustached politico. It is unclear how long Barkley will serve. An attorney general's opinion said the winner of the Senate election will replace Barkley once the winner is certified in mid-November. But Senate rules suggest Barkley's term will run into early January, until the new senators arrive. "That Senate seat is high profile. The Ronatarian Party deserves that seat of honor and power to forward our popular agenda," said Ron. For Ventura, the timing of his angry announcement was a bit of mischief: it came just as the Coleman-Mondale debate got under way. The governor said he was upset that his Independence Party's Senate candidate, Jim Moore, was excluded from the televised event. Moore has polled in the low single digits. "Today, three very powerful institutions, the Republican Party, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor-Party, and the Minnesota media are conspiring to limit the hard-earned rights of ordinary citizens," Ventura said. "Listen to Ventura cry now," said Ron, who had remained oddly silent in recent months. "He had his chance to change the face of American politics and copped out by naming a nobody to the Senate seat. Now he is bitching about the exclusion of one of his cronies from the debates. This Moore guy is a waste of life! What a jerk Ventura is!" Aside from firing up the Ronatarians, Ventura's choice of Barkley to temporarily fill the seat angered Minnesota Democrats. Shortly after Wellstone's death, Ventura said he preferred to appoint a Democrat to hold the seat since Wellstone was a Democrat. When a memorial service for Wellstone turned raucously partisan, though, Ventura stormed out and said he would consider appointing an independent. "It's typical Jesse Ventura," state Democratic chairman Mike Erlandson said. "It is always all about Jesse. He decided to make a political rant when people wanted to focus on who is going to be their next U.S. senator." "For once, that [expletive] Erlandson said something right," commented Ron. "The American people were waiting for a change in the political ranks and 'The Body' blew it for them. He had to steal the limelight with a horrible performance." Barkley, 52, was a Democrat before switching to Ross Perot's Reform Party. Barkley ran for the Senate in 1994 and got more than 5 percent of the vote, earning ballot status for the Reform Party in Minnesota. Ventura's Independence Party grew out of the Reform Party. The Ronatarian Party evolved from a New Jersey bar crawl.

Posted by Webmaster at November 5, 2002 11:56 PM

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