T. PAUL - Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura said yesterday he would consider a presidential run next year if Minnesotans mobilize behind him, but later said he didn't want the job.
''If I turn around and run for president, then I lied to all the people of Minnesota,'' Ventura said in an interview yesterday with Harvard Current magazine. ''So unless you can get Minnesotans to say, `Go ahead, Governor Ventura, run for president, we give you our backing ...'''
He said that if Minnesotans supported a run for president, ''that would open the door for the possibility of it. But by no means am I telling you I would do it.''
The interviewer asked, ''But there is a possibility, a hope?''
Ventura, ''Yeah.''
The governor's spokesman, John Wodele, was traveling with Ventura, but he refused to comment on the interview or hand the phone to Ventura, who was sitting next to him.
But in an interview later yesterday with WCCO Radio, Ventura sent a different signal. `I'm the natural candidate to do it, but I don't want to do it,'' he said. ''You gotta want the job. I don't want the job; it's that simple.''
