WI: Jesse Ventura Runs Libertarian 2008

What if in the 2008 Presidential Election, Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura had decided to run for the Libertarian Nomination? Would he have beaten Bob Barr? If yes, How well would he have done in the General Election? Would he have made it into the debates?
 

Penelope

Banned
Roughly 1% of the vote, but perhaps he could pull of a Gary Johnson '12 level of support in Minnesota?
 
Ventura really is a blowhard and a paper tiger. He has no electoral chance, and he more enjoys getting attention from saying he may run rather than making an actual, serious effort. He does not exist in the serious world.
 
Ventura really is a blowhard and a paper tiger. He has no electoral chance, and he more enjoys getting attention from saying he may run rather than making an actual, serious effort. He does not exist in the serious world.

Replace "Ventura" with "Trump" and, well, this sort of comment would sum up the conventional wisdom this time two years ago.

(Yes, yes, I understand that there are huge differences between Ventura and Trump in many other regards, and that a Ventura candidacy, should he have even gotten the Libertarian nomination, would've been lucky to get even 1% of the vote on Election Day.)
 
Replace "Ventura" with "Trump" and, well, this sort of comment would sum up the conventional wisdom this time two years ago.

(Yes, yes, I understand that there are huge differences between Ventura and Trump in many other regards, and that a Ventura candidacy, should he have even gotten the Libertarian nomination, would've been lucky to get even 1% of the vote on Election Day.)

I do not consider the following statement partisan, as political respect and bipartisanism is in regards to respecting different, reasonable opinions, and not unreasonableness or heinousness: Donald Trump is a jerk, but he's a jerk in all the right places politically. He's a jerk in the areas where people politically support what he is being a jerk about, and view it as a positive. Jesse Ventura is not, and therefore Ventura has no chance. Donald Trump says things, and expresses them in the way they actually get said and expressed among Conservative private citizens, which the Republican Conservative establishment has traditionally pretended is not the reality. Ventura does not represent anything most people go in for. He is also a Palin candidate, meaning he likes to be thought of as potentially running, and garner all the interest, attention and ego stroking from it, without the responsibility and actual effort of actually running.
 
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