See other Activism Articles
Title: Kinky, a good ol' cigar-chomping, Jewish cowboy, might soon be running Texas
Source:
Official Kinky Friedman website
URL Source: http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/index. ... ent&task=view&id=146&Itemid=27
Published: Oct 24, 2005
Author: Andrew Gumbel
Post Date: 2005-10-29 21:10:33 by Dakmar
Keywords: cigar-chomping,, cowboy,, running
Views: 91
Comments: 17
Some people run for high political office because it appeals to their vanity. Some run because they believe they can really win. When Kinky Friedman, hitherto known as an eccentric Jewish cowboy singer turned mystery novelist, is asked why he is campaigning as an independent in next year's Texas governor's race, he likes to respond with a question: "How hard can it be?" If that sounds like a wisecrack, Friedman has plenty more where it came from. His campaign is littered with Jewish jokes, politician jokes, gay marriage jokes ("they have every right to be just as miserable as the rest of us"), even jokes about the current governor, Rick Perry, and his famously perfect hairdo. "I've got a head of hair better than Rick Perry," Friedman boasts, to loud guffaws from his audiences, "it's just not in a place I can show you." For the first few months of his campaign, conventional wisdom had it that Friedman's candidacy was itself a joke, a way of sticking it to Texas's luridly headline-worthy establishment without committing himself to much more than a stream of one-liners to entertain the crowds. Certainly, he can be counted on to show up to events in his trademark jeans, cowboy hat and leather waistcoat, puffing on a fat Cuban cigar as he goes through his well-rehearsed paces. His team has produced a hilarious campaign cartoon making fun of Texas politicians as they speak broken Spanish on the campaign trail and invoke Jesus at every turn. One valuable fundraising asset is a Kinky talking doll. One of the 25 lines it spouts: "Friedman is just another word for nothing left to lose." By now, though, it is clear the campaign is much more than a joke. Kinky has been earning himself both attention and warm praise in the Texas media for his witty articulation of a commonly felt disgust at the state's political leadership. He's running at a more than respectable 18 per cent in the latest opinion poll Ð with more than a year to go before election day. Perhaps most significantly, the Texas establishment is floundering all around him. Tom DeLay, overlord of the state's congressional delegation, has just been charged with conspiracy and money-laundering. Public opinion is appalled at the governor and the legislature for relegating the Texas school system to 50th place among the 50 states. Any political capital Governor Perry may have accumulated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when his state became a conduit for federal money for the flood of incoming evacuees and he put on a passable show of competent leadership, started to deplete as soon as Katrina's successor, Hurricane Rita, hit the Gulf coast. State officials encouraged two million coastal residents to take to the Texas highways simultaneously, resulting in 100-mile traffic jams, fuel shortages and general consternation. The way Friedman and his campaign managers see it, if he can present himself as a genuine alternative to a disgusted electorate and mobilise at least some of the 75 per cent of Texas voters who didn't bother to show up for the last governor's election, he stands a real chance of winning. What he has revealed about his politics - which has not been much at this early stage - suggests he is a fiscal conservative with moderate to liberal social views. In other words, he has something to appeal across the spectrum. Governor Perry has money and the backing of the national Republican Party from George Bush on down, but he is also struggling with low approval ratings and faces a nasty primary against the state comptroller, Carole Keaton Strayhorn. The presumed Democratic candidate for governor, Chris Bell, has been almost invisible. None of them will find it easy to make a case based on their experience. As Friedman wickedly puts it: "Politics is the only field of human endeavour where the more experience you have, the worse you get." What Friedman is launching is a classic American populist campaign. At a time when the Bush presidency is hitting the rocks, there's probably no better state to try it than the spiritual home of George W and his entourage. Friedman's modest celebrity doesn't do any harm, either. Celebrity, after all, worked for Jesse Ventura, the wrestler who became governor of Minnesota in 1998, and for Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator turned Governator of California. Tellingly, Friedman's campaign manager, Dean Barkley, used to work for Jesse Ventura and knows a thing or two about insurgent campaigns - especially ones regarded by the political establishment as a joke. "We're going to revolutionise the world, one governor at a time," says Barkley, a rugby player in his spare time who enjoys the odd cigar himself. Ventura, it must be said, was less than successful once he reached office, spending much of his time on extracurricular activities and flaming out at the end of a single term. Barkley said his big mistake was to wage war on the legislature, uniting the Republicans and Democrats against him. Already, Friedman has been noticeably gentle on the Texas legislature, pouring most of his scorn instead on the state leadership (with the help of a salty testicle joke involving the governor, lieutenant governor and house speaker). When Friedman first thought about throwing his hat into the political ring, the famous Texas political columnist Molly Ivins Ð no mean humorist herself Ð responded: "Why the hell not?" That line is now an established campaign slogan alongside many others. The road ahead is complicated, however, by Texas's deep resistance to independent candidates. Not only can Friedman not take part in the primaries next March. He actually has to convince tens of thousands of voters not to vote in the primaries and sign a petition supporting his candidacy in the November general election instead. "Save yourselves for Kinky!" is the watchword. At a typical recent event outside a coffee shop in Wimberley, in the hill country not far from Austin, the Texas capital, Friedman was greeted more like a rock star than a politician. A jokey country band called the Pluckin' Idiots warmed up for him, and the crowd, arrayed on three sides of a courtyard, cheered his every line. Some were liberals, some conservatives. Soon they were all chanting: "Kinky for governor! Why the hell not?" Kinky himself deadpanned: "Bring me whatever you've got. I'll sign t-shirts, posters, bumper stickers É I'll sign anything except bad legislation."
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Dakmar (#0)
Indeed. Why the hell not?
I saw a clip of Kinky from June of this year on c-span2 today, I love this guy. Don't vote in primaries if you want Kinky on ballot, asshole politicians set it up so you can't do both.
"I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it." - William S. Burroughs
I'm hoping we can talk Jesse Ventura into running for POTUS...
"I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it." - William S. Burroughs
Another 'Jesse Venture' experiment ... great. Let's try this with some other state, say, California? How about an ex-muscelman, movie star type - could it work?
He deserves the vote of every free-thinking Texan. He can also get the Jewish Hispanic vote. The NYT had an interesting article today about Hispanics in the southwestern US discovering (or just thinking) that they're descended from Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. There's a genetic test to determine it (although the Times cast doubt on what the test really shows), and some have converted to Judaism.
I thought you bozo'd me, you weenie sucking child molester.
"I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it." - William S. Burroughs
Yep. What an effed system. Ya vote...whoops, you can't vote. Such a deal. BLOAT
Watch your language concerning _Jim!!!! He is a professional "penis inhaling pedophile."
I'd vote for him over the current office holder. The guy is smart and down-to-earth. I wonder what he'd say about _Jim?
Another Mogambo Day
We'd need the entire National Guard, or what's left of them, to protect him (got my doubts about the SS( geez, why does that bother me)).
Another Mogambo Day
The other day I was listening to our one radio station NPR, and they had a segment on how people are remaking songs from the old Beatles album Rubber Soul. They played snippets of parts of some of the songs done by current bands, and one of them was the old song sung by John Lennon "You better hide (something or another) little girl...." (can't remember the title) and then they played a remake by the Junkie Cowboys. It was hysterical. It made me want to look up the Junkie Cowboys to see who they are and what they are all about. I laughed all day after hearing it, they had this men's chorus in the background shouting the "LITTLE GIRL!" part, it was just too funny.
The governor doesn't "run" Texas. This myth has already helped cause the presidency of Dubya Botch. Let's not foster the illusion that if Friedman, who has expressed admiration for all things Bush himself, is elected, that somehow qualifies him to seek the White House immediately afterwards. The "weak governorship" of Texas dates back to the Reconstruction Era. Once a new constitution was drafted free of Yankee interference, those who authored made sure that no one could dictatorially abuse the powers of that office as had just been witnessed with the tenure of the Republican governors forced upon the state right after Appomattox. So the framers of the new constitution just eliminated most of the powers.
Cowboy Junkies are excellent, I recommend them to anyone who loves music.
"I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it." - William S. Burroughs
I wasn't aware that Friedman was a Bush fan, he didn't strike me as the type. That said, I wholly support the idea of electing someone who is going to make a complete mockery of the political process.
"I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it." - William S. Burroughs
I don't see what the big deal is. Isn't the Bush Family somehow Jewish??? I know I've read articles about it.
"Kinky for governor! Why the hell not?"
#2. To: christine, lodwick, sawsalimb, TEXANS (#0)
#3. To: who knows what evil (#1)
#4. To: who knows what evil (#1)
#5. To: Dakmar (#0)
Kinky Friedman, hitherto known as an eccentric Jewish cowboy singer
I've already said too much.
#6. To: _Jim (#4)
#7. To: Dakmar (#2)
Don't vote in primaries if you want Kinky on ballot, asshole politicians set it up so you can't do both.
#8. To: Dakmar (#6)
weenie sucking child molester.
#9. To: who knows what evil (#1)
#10. To: Dakmar (#3)
I'm hoping we can talk Jesse Ventura into running for POTUS...
#11. To: Dakmar (#0)
#12. To: Dakmar (#0)
#13. To: Diana (#11)
#14. To: Sam Houston (#12)
#15. To: Dakmar (#0)
 | So many morons, so few bullets. |
#16. To: Dakmar (#2)
I'm seeing more and more Kinkster bumper stickers here in the CenTex.
#17. To: Dakmar (#14)
The economist???
Friedman
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." - Albert Einstein
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest