ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Anyone who was NOT offended by Gov. Jesse Ventura's Playboy interview, please raise your hand.
The former pro wrestler whose frank talk got him elected in an upset last fall gave an interview in which he aimed barbs at religion and fat people, and declared the Navy's Tailhook scandal was overblown.And that was just the beginning of what the Reform Party's biggest star had to say.
On Thursday, the morning after the interview became public, Ventura got the tag-team treatment from both his political opponents and his own party.
"Minnesotans do not embrace your views on religion, on women, on prostitution, on drugs or conspiracy," Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe, a Democrat, said at a news conference.
State Republican chairman Ron Eibensteiner said Ventura should consider stepping down because his "attacks show he has a fundamental lack of understanding of the world he lives in."
The Body defended his comments by saying: "This is Playboy. They want you to be provocative."
One major question is whether the interview will hurt the Reform Party and Ventura's standing as a player in Reform Party presidential politics.
"At a national level he gets attention, but it's attention that eerily parallels the 'What's going on upstairs' attention that Ross Perot got," said Chris Gilbert, a political science professor at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. Ventura is "no longer provocative; he's a potential laughingstock. It's exactly what the Reform Party doesn't need."
In the interview, which hits the newsstands Monday, Ventura called for the regulation of illegal drugs, with the creation of "places where the addict can go get it."
He pronounced organized religion "a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people," and blamed it for the unpopularity of legalized prostitution, which he has said should be considered. And he declared that Tailhook was "much ado about nothing" and claimed that fat people "can't push away from the table."
Ventura tried to clarify his remarks on religion Thursday, saying he doesn't need it but doesn't condemn those who do, including his wife.