Ventura arrived on campus with a lot of explaining to do, particularly after making a rash of incendiary remarks in this November's issue of Playboy. Among other things, the wrestler-turned-politician had asserted that "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers."He had also expressed what bordered on disdain for anyone considering suicide and made clear his desire to be reincarnated as a size 38-DD bra. Sound a little off? 

When asked about it, Ventura acquitted himself matter-of-factly. "I do 3 to 5 interviews a day,"he explained, which means "upwards of 1,000 interviews this year."As he digested the two pieces of pizza his new "dieting"allowed for, the Governor remained unrepentant. "I'm human. I'm gonna say things that will offend people - but I'm not gonna worry about it because I can't worry about it."

Americans may rightly insist on more of an accounting than that. After all, religion has a distinguished pedigree in the Republic. Sessions of both the House and Senate open with prayers. Our mint bears the inscription "In God We Trust."And millions of schoolchildren across the country continue to pledge allegiance to "one nation, under God."More than 30 years after the Warren court tried to legislate religion out of the country's civic life, faith-based institutions remain vital to thousands of communities nation-wide, often doing a far better job battling poverty and educating the needy than federal and state governments. It should come as no surprise, then, that political philosophers from Tocqueville on down have noted the primacy of faith in American life, some even positing that the type of free-market system we enjoy is impossible without the moral underpinning religion provides. 

In light of those realities, it has been all too easy to dismiss Ventura's remarks as benighted incivility. At the Institute of Politics, however, "the Mind"shared with us a deeper dimension to his views on religion that does not emerge from the soundbytes gleefully bandied about by the media. "You have to read the whole quote,"he insisted, emphasizing that "my comment is based on the Religious Right,"and that "the Religious Right wants to tell you how to live."Ventura was equally vehement in explaining how "that's not necessarily a bad thing to say that you need religion as a crutch,"pointing out that "I don't need religion"but that "my wife does."

A poignant anecdote the Governor shared was especially revealing. He had been stationed overseas in an impoverished country, Ventura recalled, when he saw a poor man handling a large sum of money. Intrigued, he inquired what the cash was for and found that the man was putting it up for a nephew's baptism. "Well, excuse me,"Jesse looked at us wryly, "but I thought John used to do that in the river for free."

It's not religion per se that he objects to, the big man seemed to be saying, but people "literally being made to feel like they have to pay their way into heaven."And believe it or not, this hard-hitting free thinker did stress that even he can't always resist the Sunday tintinnabulations. "I love my Minister,"the Governor affirmed. "He looked at me and said, 'You're just gonna come when you want to, right?' And I said, 'that's right.' And he said, 'I can live with that.' That to me is religion."

Not necessarily Cotton Mather or Jonathan Edwards, perhaps, but he sure wasn't the Nietzsche Sunday-morning TV politics had made him out to be. Just a regular guy, not afraid to equate freedom of religion with "the greatness of this country,"even willing to admit that "I could have phrased [the Playboy comments] better" - but worried, nonetheless, that a great tradition called separation of church and state is being aggressively ablated by the continuing radicalization of the Right, to the point where "I somehow get the feeling an atheist or agnostic could no longer get elected."

Unfortunately, the damage Ventura's candor has done to his standing as uncontested leader of the national Reform party may prove irreversible. Reform chairman Russell Verney has written the Governor that he wants him out of the party, and even in his home state of Minnesota, the Body's approval rating is down 18 points. Not that any politician looks forward to such a drubbing, but it would be hard to imagine a worse time for Jesse's current woes. Pat Buchanan is greedily eyeing the Reform nomination. And the megalomaniac Perot appears more than willing to oblige, keenly aware of the opportunity to regain some of the ascendancy he has lost in the party that was his brainchild.

The Body isn't oblivious to the danger. As he talked, Jesse evinced definite concern over the "shift among party leadership."He had "felt we were centrist,"and was perplexed by the fact that "we're embracing someone who's not."Not surprisingly, when asked about his views on Ross Perot, Ventura admitted that "I've tended to think he's out for himself and not the party."He went so far as to question Perot's sincerity: "Does he want [us] to be a viable third party?"

No one who listens to him for any length of time can doubt that Ventura, for one, does want a viable third party. But if his provocative remarks contribute to the marginalization of Reform, or if a post-Playboy, politically drained Body is simply less able to withstand the forces of co-optation trying to consign Reform to the American ash-heap of abortive third party efforts, Ventura as national comedy will turn tragicomic. Literally. 

Reform has a real chance of surviving in the long term, in a way perhaps no other third party has since the end of the Civil War. Unlike the Populists or Progressives, Dixiecrats or standard-bearers of Wallace, many of those who today seek political solutions outside the traditional two-party structure are animated neither by a single nor even necessarily a limited set of issues. Instead, they are tapping into a broad current of American political tradition that has never quite jived with either conservatism or liberalism, as those terms are used in the 20th century; with apostles as diverse as Paine and Jefferson, Goldwater and - at times - Reagan. 

They court a philosophy, in short, whose contours are definitely libertarian but whose core possesses little of the scorched-earth animus with which that specific label is so often associated. It is limited government in the economy and in your bedroom; a tax rebate and legalized pot-to-go, but with reasonable helpings of campaign finance and welfare reform on the side. Combine that with the appeal of Ventura, and you have a smooth third-party finish. 

On some level, after all, it's hard not to love the guy. He goes to great pains cultivating his image as an outsider. It feels contrived at times, as when he asks one Harvard undergraduate writing a senior thesis on his Reform victory in Minnesota just what a senior thesis is. But it is definitely sincere at others, especially as he proclaims, Cincinnatus-like, his desire to pick up the plough of private citizenship after a term of tilling public soil; or when he boasts that unlike most other politicians, "I govern according to not getting reelected."

You don't have to, and indeed probably shouldn't, agree with the things he says about suicide or a wide range of other issues. But paradoxically, you can still appreciate his mistakes precisely because he makes them. You can appreciate the fact that he isn't afraid to speak without a script, that he disdains the cosmetic sterility of so many establishment mannequins, and that presidential debates in 2000 will therefore definitely be more substantive, healthy for democracy even - the more Body we have in them.