 MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ― Former Gov. Jesse Ventura prefers Mexico over Minnesota these days, but it won't take long for his former constituents to recognize his style if they pick up his new book, "Don't Start the Revolution Without Me."
Part personal memoir, part political rant and all Jesse, Ventura uses the book to rail against organized religion and the media, detail many of his encounters with celebrities, and suggest that he should be viewed as a possible candidate for president this year.
"Is it worth it to put my family and me out there, to take on a force that most of the American people are willing to go along with?" Ventura writes in the book, due in stores in April. "The government is supposed to be us, and it's not us anymore. It's been hijacked. Just when is somebody going to do something?"
Even if the former pro wrestler is serious about running, he doesn't rein in the outsized opinions that often got him in trouble when he was governor. The book is constructed as a loose travelogue of he and wife Terry's drive from Minnesota to Baja California, where they now spend much of their time. But it leaves plenty of room for Ventura to digress into his obsessions:
-- Ventura discusses at length the assassination of President Kennedy. He scorns the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and claims that during a trip to Dallas as governor that a policeman warned him to avoid talking too much about "things that certain people don't want brought to light."
Ventura also airs his suspicion that "somebody in the government" sent people to infiltrate a government course he taught at Harvard in 2004, on a day when he discussed the Kennedy assassination. Throughout the book he shows a fascination with conspiracy and surveillance, recounting several strange encounters he had with CIA agents while governor and also claiming that, at one point during his term, his wife found an electronic listening device at their private home.
-- Just a page after an extended passage on Kennedy, Ventura turns to another favorite topic: what he sees as the folly of organized religion. He argues that Catholic Church leaders should be brought up on racketeering charges for covering up sexual abuse by priests, and then writes: "If Jesus came back today, I think he'd throw up."
-- Ventura professes something like admiration for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, whom he spent time with during a trade mission as governor, finding him engaging and perceptive. Ventura writes that he asked Castro about the Kennedy assassination, he says the Cuban leader denied involvement but similarly believed that Oswald did not act alone.
-- A harsh critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Ventura has little good to say about President Bush and his administration. Returning to his interest in conspiracies, he admits that "my doubts have grown steadily" about the official story behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"I think that bin Laden and al Qaeda were responsible for September 11th," Ventura writes. "But I also think it wasn't without some knowledge from our side."
Still, for someone who scorns all sides of the political debate, Ventura speculates on what his campaign for president would look like. He ends the book with a series of fictional newspaper articles describing an insurgent 2008 campaign, with environmental activist Robert Kennedy Jr. as his running mate.
While the scenario starts off lighthearted -- Ventura kicks off his candidacy at a Wrestlemania event -- in the end it takes a macabre turn when he is shot by a Cuban exile upset over his opposition to the U.S. economic boycott against Cuba.
"While independent presidential candidate Jesse Ventura -- in a coma for the fourth consecutive day -- clung to life with family members gathered at his bedside, a White House press spokesman denied mounting allegations that accused assassin Raul Santana was part of a wider plot," one entry reads.
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