Politics

Game Over: Jesse Ventura wants Howard Stern as running mate for 2016 presidential run

Jamie Weinstein Senior Writer
Font Size:

Jesse Ventura, a former boa-wearing fake wrestler who also somehow was elected governor of Minnesota, says that if he runs for president in 2016, he wants radio legend Howard Stern to be his running mate.

Ventura, a renowned conspiracy theorist who entertains the notion that the world is controlled by a council of seven genocidal people and believes 9/11 was an inside job, said that he has already talked to the 59-year-old Stern about the possibility.

“Well Howard and I, I floated it by him and he had some interest in it,” Ventura said in a appearance on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ “eccentric” radio show last week.

Ventura, 62, went on to say that Stern “got that Howard twinkle in his eye” when he raised the possibility of a run and that he was going to “point blank” ask Stern for a yes or no answer when he appears on Stern’s radio show Wednesday.

“I’ll be out there on Wednesday and so Wednesday I’m going to point blank him and say, ‘Howard, I can’t do it without you,’ because there is certain things I need from Howard to make this successful,” Ventura said. “And one of the things is I despise raising the money — the bribing of the officials and all that. And if I had someone like Howard, how much money could Howard raise with his radio show and I wouldn’t even want to know about it.”

Asked by email to comment on the potential 2016 ticket, political guru Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said, “Haha. Now I’ve heard everything.”

“This ticket would truly be a choice, not an echo,” he added. “It’s the ultimate ‘None of the Above’ duo.”

Jones’ show was not the first time Ventura mentioned the possibility of a presidential run with Stern as his running mate. He raised the prospect of such a ticket as far back as September 2012. A Twitter account — @VenturaStern16 — even exists pushing for the political pairing, as do several different Facebook pages.

In September 2012, after Ventura first mentioned Stern as a possible running mate, Stern responded on his radio show, calling it “probably the most absurd thing” he’s ever heard. But he claimed he would consider it.

Though Ventura fashions himself a libertarian, he told The Daily Caller in a bizarre interview last year that Marxism may actually be the best political system.

“The Communism of Karl Marx would probably be actually the best for everybody as a whole,” he explained. “But what he didn’t figure into was human nature and that’s what corrupts it.”

Ventura also laid out to TheDC what it would take to get him to run for president in 2016.

“Here’s what it will take. I will run with no party. I will run as Jesse Ventura individual citizen. But it would require a grassroots move costing me and the campaign no money. No money,” he said. “A grassroots move of the people to get me ballot access between now and 2016 in all 50 states. They’ve got three years to do it. In all 50 states get me ballot access and there must be an outcry that I must have a guarantee ironclad that I can be in the debates. … If that’s met, I would probably run for president.”

Stern, whose $400 million contact with Sirius XM Radio ends in 2015, ran for governor of New York on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1994 before withdrawing from the race after a judge ruled he had to disclose his financial records.

Follow Jamie on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel