Ventura Won't be a Candidate

UPDATE: Dean Barkley has qualified to run for the U. S. Senate. Since there are six other Independence Party candidates, the party will have a contested primary in September.

Jesse Ventura said Monday night that he won't run as a third-party candidate for U. S. senator.

Appearing on CNN's "Larry King Is Alive," the former Minnesota governor cited family considerations as his main reason for eschewing the race against the incumbent Republican, Norm Coleman, and the likely Democratic nominee, Al Franken (aka Stuart Smalley). Ventura also expressed his dissatisfaction with the presidential candidacies of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain and said that he very likely would not vote at all.

I was surprised that Ventura, who called himself a "rogue independent," did not mention any of the other presidential candidates and instead made it sound as though McCain and Obama are the only alternatives.

Following Ventura's announcement, Dean Barkley, who was appointed interim senator by Gov. Ventura in 2002, said that he was reconsidering the Senate race and might seek the Independence Party's nomination after all.

The qualifying deadline is 5 p.m. local time today.

In the course of the interview, Larry King stated that George W. Bush has the lowest approval rating of any president ever. In the early 1950s, President Harry Truman sank to 23 percent in the polls, and I don't think Bush has yet dropped that low.