Ventura: If I Run, It Will Be For President in 2012

Maybe Jesse Ventura decided against a bid for Senate so he could run for the White House.

The former Minnesota governor deflected suggestions by Fox News’s Sean Hannity that he should have launched an independent bid against Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Democrat Al Franken. Then Ventura said that he could run for office again, in 2012, to become president.

Here’s the must-read exchange between Hannity, guest co-host Susan Estrich and Ventura, a former pro-wrestler and Navy SEAL, from Monday night:

HANNITY: You should have run. It’s in your blood. You chickened out.

VENTURA: You could call a Navy SEAL a chicken?

HANNITY: No, I’m only kidding.

VENTURA: You better be kidding. You better be kidding.

HANNITY: No. You should have run, because it’s in your blood.

VENTURA: I won’t bother with that one. I’ve been in the executive branch as a mayor and a governor. So if I run it will be 2012 for the big one.

HANNITY: You want to run for president?

VENTURA: Yes.

HANNITY: You’re thinking about it?

VENTURA: No, I just said if I do, it will be for the big one.

HANNITY: All right.

VENTURA: Because there’s no point in going for the other ones. I can’t make the changes that I feel need to happen in America to bring us back to our Constitution to where, as we saw the Democrats do a week ago, they stripped the Fourth Amendment again by voting to have George Bush, can now listen in on our…

HANNITY: Susan and I agree.

ESTRICH: We agree.

VENTURA: They can listen in on our — they can wiretap us. They can read our e-mail. All those things that they used to not be able to do.

HANNITY: They’re not doing that.

VENTURA: You believe them?

HANNITY: Yes, I do. Are they reading your e-mail?

VENTURA: Hey, they had my phone tapped when I was governor. Did you read the book? Did you read the book?

Ventura also had parting shots for his two would-have-been opponents in this year’s Senate race. He said he equally disliked both Franken, whom he called a “carpetbagger,” and Coleman, whom he called a “chicken hawk.”

“[Franken] has not lived in the state of Minnesota for over 30 years,” Ventura said. “Certainly, if he loses this race, I’d be very surprised to see if he keeps living in Minnesota. In fact, I’ll bet he even had to get a Minnesota driver’s license when he came home.”

Ventura added: “Now Coleman, on the other hand, he’s your quintessential chicken hawk… Here’s a guy who, when he was — it was his time to go to war, he was at Hofstra University protesting the war, which I don’t mind. People have the right to do that and oppose wars. I oppose the Iraq war today. But to come back 30 years later and rubber-stamp a war, all parts of it.”