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Jesse Ventura Inc.
BY GERALD RAMSEY ANDERSON | Pat Helmberger, a 63-year-old secretary at the Minnesota State Capitol, learned about Gov. Jesse Ventura's grand marketing plans the hard way, after she designed Valentine's Day cards featuring Ventura in wrestling tights and a pink feather boa. She wound up in a legal headlock, when a company called Ventura for Minnesota Inc. sent a cease-and-desist order to stop her from selling the cards, claiming "Governor Ventura and his assigns ... own the exclusive rights to use his name and likeness for commercial purposes." "They just wanted to intimidate me," Helmberger said. "What did I do to them?" She recovered from the threat in time to sell Ventura-themed St. Patrick's Day cards last week, but she knows that Ventura for Minnesota Inc. would like to eradicate her cottage industry. The match-up between "The Body" and a self-described "little old lady" from Minnesota may be surreal, but it has brought to the fore a bigger issue: the selling of Jesse Ventura. What began as an idealistic stab at populist politics has turned into a marketing free-for-all. The merchandising of Minnesota's governor, which helped finance his Reform Party campaign, hardly abated after the election, despite early promises from Ventura that the cashing-in would subside after he took office. There are now two organizations -- Ventura for Minnesota Inc. and the Ventura Volunteer Committee -- selling Ventura T-shirts, key chains and, yes, action figures, around the world. It is clear that the people who negotiated Ventura's victory intend to capitalize on their candidate's star quality to subsidize future political campaigns, but the ethical boundaries remain fuzzy. During the course of the campaign, Ventura's crew became adept at grass-roots marketing and garnering free media attention. Post-election, the stakes are a little higher. Ventura himself unabashedly inked a book deal with Villard Books, for a $500,000 advance, immediately after his victory. He partied like a rock star with Warren Zevon at his inaugural ball, which filled the Target Center arena -- Target Stores being a key Minnesota institution, which coincidentally also sell official Ventura merchandise -- amid unanswered questions about corporate sponsorship. Ventura continues to book appearances on late-night talk shows, recently trading barbs with David Letterman about personal income. He rationalizes all this self-promotion by saying, "I'm not doing anything I haven't done before in my career." The difference now, of course, is that he is Gov. Ventura. Since 1992, Jesse "The Body" Ventura has been registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which states that the nickname is for "entertainment purposes, namely, personal appearances by an individual to promote professional wrestling." But who owns the governor? The ethical questions that dogged former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who had to slither away from his own book deal in 1995, haven't so far plagued Ventura. With Gingrich, the uproar came from a feeling he was capitalizing on his political fame to profit personally. With Ventura, it may be that Minnesotans feel Jesse was famous before they voted him in. But some remain uneasy with the money grubbing. Frank Sorauf, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Minnesota, said Ventura has shirked usual political standards. "The beauty of Jesse Ventura, because he is virtuous himself and a self-proclaimed honest man, is that he can take money from anybody and it won't corrupt him," Sorauf said sardonically. By personally profiting while in office, or even raising political money off his pop-culture status, Sorauf believes, Ventura degrades the perceived populism of his victory and further taints politics. "At least Bill Clinton did not sell a bumper sticker that said, 'I slept in the Lincoln Bedroom,'" Sorauf said. Ventura relies on two different entities to hawk his image. One is Ventura for Minnesota Inc., a nonprofit corporation made up of three Minnesota companies licensed to sell post-campaign merchandise. Its board of directors consists of campaign manager Doug Friedline, Terry Ventura (wife of the governor) and campaign chair Dean Barkley. According to Friedline, the product has sold well in two months at Target, and the official Jesse Ventura Web site is pushing three different Ventura action figures as "Governor," "Navy SEAL" and "Coach," to be shipped in April. The Minnesota campaign finance board determined this month that Ventura for Minnesota Inc. is not a political entity, and therefore does not need to follow campaign finance laws, as long as profits are not used for any campaign. Indeed, Friedline has maintained all along that the nonprofit exists to serve as a charitable organization, though no charitable donations have yet been made. Ventura for Minnesota can also finance "constituent services," covering the governor's expenses where the state governor's budget fails to do so. What exactly may fall under this category is unclear to both the state board and Ventura for Minnesota, though get-out-the-vote events in schools are one possibility. "Truth is, nobody's clear on it," said Gary Goldsmith, assistant director of the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. "We'll see what comes up in the future." Also, Ventura for Minnesota serves to keep Ventura in the spotlight to positive effect. "It might enhance his name, certainly," said Goldsmith. "Any donation will bear the name of this company, and that may affect his chances in any future races." The second key Ventura marketing enterprise is the Ventura Volunteer Committee, formerly known as Ventura for Governor, which is most definitely a campaign committee. Under the new ruling, the campaign entity can purchase any merchandise from Ventura for Minnesota and sell it specifically for campaign use. "The function of Ventura for Minnesota, as presented to us, was first, to protect the governor's name and then to exist as a charitable organization," Goldsmith says. "But the campaign committee can certainly sell this merchandise as well, and it's very commercial." Ventura defended the entrepreneurial strategy recently at the National Press Club, growling that it is more ethical to sell someone a T-shirt than to ask baldly for a political contribution. Ventura, Friedline and Barkley thrive in these sorts of uncharted waters. Their gubernatorial campaign survived by selling black headbanger-esque shirts with electric green lettering that said, "Retaliate in '98: Ventura for Governor." All told, the Ventura for Governor entity spent about $600,000 (most of which was state money that came after the election); campaign treasurer Bob Maline estimated that nearly $150,000 came in T-shirt sales. Ventura's two major opponents, Democrat Skip Humphrey and Republican Norm Coleman, each spent within a whisker of the state cap of $2.1 million, a figure that doesn't include "soft" money, which bumped spending for each campaign up another couple of million. By contrast, Ventura for Governor adhered to the Reform Party policy of taking no PAC money and received no national party money. N E X T+P A G E+| Is Garrison Keillor profiting off Ventura, too? |
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