NEW HAMPSHIRE WEEKLY

In this corner, the contender: Lobsterman

By Stacy Milbouer, Globe Correspondent, April 18, 1999

HUDSON -- In a year when political candidates' private lives and past indiscretions are said to be fair game, there's at least one presidential candidate who not only claims to have no skeletons in his closet, but also boasts that his skeleton is on the outside.

"I have an exoskeleton. I don't have anything to hide," says Jeff "Lobsterman" Costa.

Costa, a professional wrestler, is running for president on the "Crustacian Party" ticket.

He does most of his campaigning ringside. Wolfman, Maverick Wild, the Butcher and Crusher are among his closest advisers.

He's got to be kidding. But he's not.

"It's like this," Costa said while eating a grilled chicken pizza before a Saturday-night match at the Lions Club. "When I was in junior high school I decided I wanted to be a wrestler. My guidance counselor said, 'You can't do that.' And when I was in high school, all my teachers said, 'You can't do that.' But I did it. And now I'm 36 years old and I'm a successful wrestler. I've achieved all my goals. I got the job. I got the friends and, most important, I got the girl."

Costa and his wife, Monica, married when she was 19 and he was 20. He said he loves her as much today as he did 16 years ago when he met her at a wrestling match in Canada and admired her shoes.

"Now I have an opportunity to spread the word that the American dream is possible. And no, it's not because of Jesse 'The Body' Ventura's political success. [Costa claims to have had the presidential dream long before former wrestler Ventura ever ran for governor of Minnesota.] I'm not a disgruntled American. I'm a happy American."

Costa says he's not daunted by his lack of political experience either. He said that when he gets to Washington he plans to call on the experts instead of pretending to know what he's doing, as other politicians do.

He also plans to take all his wrestling pals with him.

"These are people I trust with my life," he said. "We never had a baby sitter for my children with the exception of wrestlers like the Wolf and Rip."

Wolf, or the Wolfman, a.k.a. Jason Sanderson, is Costa's right-claw man. Sanderson, who never quit the New Hampshire wrestling business or his friends like Costa when he won $66 million in the New Hampshire lottery last year, is using his business (Championship Wrestling Promotions) in Epping as "Lobsterman for President" headquarters and plans to back Costa, "even though my family has been Republican back to the days of Lincoln."

Lobsterman doesn't like labels like Republican or Democrat. When asked what his ethnic background is, he'll only say "crustacean-American." And he bristles at the term blue collar, even though the majority of his wrestling fans probably come from working-class backgrounds.

"No, that implies oppression and working people are not oppressed," he said. "My father was a cop in Nashua and my mother teaches art at Fairgrounds Junior High School. I'm from a working-class family, but when I was growing up I thought we were rich. We had everything."

Costa said he loved his childhood and is proud of the childhood he and his wife have provided their three daughters.

Unlike the president with that other Monica, Costa said he would never cheat on his wife in the Oval Office or any other place. "There are two rules that are givens for me," he said. "Never cheat on your spouse and never kill anybody."

"And we don't plan on moving into the White House," he said. "Too many bad associations."

That just wouldn't work for someone who would like to be an inspiration to young people, especially teenagers, even though he said his daughter is embarrassed by his run for the presidency.

"We need to motivate kids," he said. "Get them going. Give them incentives. We need to teach them that before you can get stuff, you need to accumulate sweat equity. You have to work for what you want. I think kids need to hear about ethics and to have real heros they can look up to."

So how does that jibe with pro wrestling, which many consider too violent for youngsters to watch?

"What I do here, what we do, is not the WWF [World Wrestling Federation] that you see on the USA network," he said. "This is an ages-old sport. It's a morality play where evil might win the battle, but it will never win the war."

And even though the Crustacian Party headquarters is situated at Championship Wrestling in Epping, and "Lobsterman for President" posters abound at Allstar Wrestling Association matches in New England, Costa is emphatic that he's not running for president to promote his wrestling career. Rather he's hoping wrestling will bring attention to his platform -- a combination of Michael Dukakis liberalism, heavy on children's rights, with Hulk Hogan muscle and Henny Youngman sensitivity thrown in for good measure.

His positions:

On civil rights -- "The Declaration of Independence says all men are created equal. Go ahead, argue with that, I DARE you."

Foreign aid -- "The United States has to stop sending billions of American tax dollars to countries that continue to violate human rights . . . This especially applies to countries that use child labor and slave labor. These countries insult everything we believe in, and rub salt in the wounds by using our economic aid to compete with our businesses. The United States should . . . veto sending International Monetary Funds to these countries. Want our help? CLEAN UP YOUR ACT."

Welfare -- "Welfare was developed to help people who needed it. Sure there are people who abuse it, but every program in America has absuers. Doing away with welfare will only hurt people who need it. Those who work the system will be inconvenienced but unscathed. We need to make it more profitable to be off the system than on it. We can do that by raising minimum wage, providing better health care and child care and by keeping interest rates low so that people have more money to put back into the economy."

On Republicans -- "The Republicans made a big deal out of their Contract with America, but I think they should be sued for breach of contract."

On Democrats -- "You may not have done such a bad job these past eight years, but if all they're going to remember is Bill and Monica, what good did it do you?"

On Maine -- "Maine should be traded for British Columbia. (Have you ever seen what they do to lobsters?)"

But how does a man that wears big red claws get taken seriously in a race with the likes of Pat Buchanan and Al Gore?

"No problem." He says there is no better training for president than the wrestling ring. "I go around the country meeting different people, real people. Listen, I'm the bad guy in the group. Every night I climb in the ring and people yell, 'Kill the guy.' I love it. I live for it. Can Al Gore take that?

"When you see Pat Buchanan on television, shaking hands in a diner, he's not there to eat scrambled eggs. I'm there to eat. You can count on that. I'm 300 pounds of steel and crustacean appeal, and I have to keep that up."

Sanderson said Costa plans to get the 3,000 names necessary to register as at least an independent candidate for the 2000 presidential primary. And he said they're considering whether to go all the way in getting the signatures of 3 percent of registered voters necessary to make the Crustacian Party a real player in the next millennium.