Trump and Ventura: Sounds like a team

BROOKLYN PARK -- Although Reform Party Gov. Jesse Ventura isn't offering an endorsement of Donald Trump for president yet, he is giving the potential candidate some advice and encouragement.

Neither Trump nor Ventura discouraged the notion Friday night that the developer will announce a presidential campaign next month -- or that the former wrestler will endorse it.

Ventura even referred to Trump as a candidate after a day of joint appearances with Trump in the Minneapolis suburb where the governor began his political career as mayor.

''Yes, this candidate may not fit the mold, but neither did I,'' Ventura said.

Trump was the keynote speaker at the $100-a-person fund-raiser for Ventura's campaign committee attended by more than 200. The two also met privately and stood together at a news conference.

As Trump's gilded 737 jet glided toward Minneapolis earlier in the day, he told The Associated Press in a brief interview on-board that only ''death'' would stop him from launching a presidential campaign.

He later ventured a guess on what Ventura might say about such a bid.

''I think if I decide to run he will endorse me, but I haven't decided to run,'' Trump told the reporters assembled in his cabin as he settled back into a red velvet chair. ''If I decide to run, I feel that I have a very good chance of getting Jesse's endorsement.''

On the ground later, sharing a lectern with Trump, Ventura refused to say whom he might endorse.

''When Donald announces his candidacy, ask me then,'' Ventura said.

Even if he wasn't endorsing him, Ventura tried to be helpful, telling Trump to ''always take a positive attitude. Always believe the impossible can happen.''

The notion that Trump ''can't win is something we've really got to work to overcome,'' Ventura said, adding that Trump's famous name would help.

''Not having to buy that name recognition is so important because you then don't have to sell your soul to special interests,'' Ventura said.

The governor repeated that it's ''unlikely'' he would support conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan, who left the GOP last year and is trying to pursue enough support in 29 states to get the Reform Party nomination and its $12.6 million in federal funding.

Both Trump and Ventura have low opinions of Buchanan because of his conservative views and the assertion in his book, ''A Republic, Not an Empire,'' that Hitler's Third Reich was no threat to the country after 1940.

''Pat Buchanan is a loser,'' Trump said aboard his plane, which has a fuselage emblazoned with his name in gold leaf.

One thing Trump and Ventura won't do together: run for the White House. Ventura said he plans to serve the remaining three years of his term as governor.

Trump is doing everything a candidate would do: He's established an exploratory committee, hired staff, put out a platform, established a budget and planned an advertising blitz.

Trump says he would spend $100 million of his own money for a White House bid. Trump, who is divorced, would pick his social dates more carefully, he said, out of respect for the dignity of the office he would be seeking. ''There has to be some restraint,'' he said.