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As if driven to say to Republicans and Democrats, "A plague on both your houses," Minnesota voters turned out in force on November 3 to vote for a third-party candidate. In areas accustomed to low voter-turnout, citizens swarmed to the polls. In Todd County, extra ballots had to be photocopied when polling places ran out of forms. When the dust had cleared, a 47-year-old pro-choice ex-wrestler who favors gay marriage was governor-elect of Minnesota.

Confounding pollsters, Reform Party candidate Jesse "The Body" Ventura won 37 per cent of the vote, trouncing both Hubert H. Humphrey 3d, the state attorney general, and Norm Coleman, the Republican mayor of St. Paul. Throughout a campaign that stressed his "fiscal conservatism and liberal-to-moderate social views," Ventura spurned PAC money and relied on the strength of his popularity as a radio talk-show host. His largest campaign expense may have been an effective TV spot in which one little boy's Jesse Ventura action figure vanquishes another's Special Interest Man doll.

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"My biggest concerns for Minnesota," Ventura says, "are taxes and education." Voters eagerly responded to his pledge not to raise taxes, and were won over by his running mate, Mae Schunk, an award-winning teacher and curriculum designer who has gained recognition through her work with gifted children. The Green Thumb Project, one of Schunk's experimental business/education partnerships, helped launch AIDS research at the University of Minnesota.

Ventura, whose legal name remains James George Janos, is a Minnesota native who became a Navy Seal in the early 1970s. In 1975 he launched a career as a mediocre but attention-grabbing professional wrestler who wore feather boas into the ring. His notoriety led to a film career that may have peaked with Predator (1987), in which he and Arnold Schwarzenegger did battle with a bloodthirsty alien being. From 1991 to 1995, he served as mayor of suburban Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, where he lives with his wife and two children.

Ventura's victory marks the first time statewide office has been won by a Reform Party candidate. A grassroots offshoot of H. Ross Perot's 1992 presidential campaign, the Reform Party contains troubling reactionary elements and has attracted such controversial figures as former Rainbow Lobbyist Lenora Fulani. But Ventura, whom the Reform Party recruited as a candidate in much the same way the Libertarian Party of New York once drafted Howard Stern, is in the Reform Party but not of it. "Nobody pulls Jesse's strings," says one gay Minnesotan political observer. "That's what people like."

Ventura has been consistently positive on the subject of gay rights, and says he favors same-sex marriage. While activists are gratified by Ventura's public statements, it nonetheless remains to be seen what Ventura can do for Minnesota's gay community. The state already has a gay rights law on the books; the Republican-controlled Minnesota House of Representatives is not about to endorse legislation to make gay marriage legal.

Ventura's popular appeal has been compared to that of Ronald Reagan. But apart from his stances on abortion and gay rights, many of Ventura's positions-- opposition to school vouchers, open-mindedness toward legalization of prostitution-- seem calculated to give diehard Reaganites apoplexy. Ventura may, in fact, have pinpointed the American political center more accurately than anyone else in contemporary mainstream politics. Besides, as gay politician-cum-standup comic Tom Ammiano said recently, "How can you hate a man who wears a feather boa to work?"