The more I read about this man the more I like him.
What’s the straight dope on this fella? What are his odds of winning?
Now I know the governership in Texas is not that powerful a position but I still think he could do some good.
I still haven’t heard him say what he wants to do. Yesterday he said that he wants to release all people in prison for marijuana possession so we’ll have room for real criminals, but that’s about it.
I mainly know him as the writer/performer of such classic songs as Waitress, oh Waitress, Come Sit On My Face, Get Your Biscuits In the Oven And Your Buns In Bed, and They Don’t Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore. Humorous yes, but I can’t see how that qualifies him for the governers mansion.
More recently, he’s the author of some rather funny crime novels as well.
I’m mostly against stunt governership campaigns, but he’s such an interesting character, and enough of a liberal, that I’d vote for him. Unfortunately, however, most of what I’ve heard out of him so far is a series of one-liners rather than an actual platform. While “Why the hell not?” is just about the best campaign slogan ever, it doesn’t address the many real problems this state has, particularly in the area of education. There, I’ve heard a lot of stirring rhetoric about how it needs to be improved, but not much about how. Likewise, the press in Texas has generally been rather merciless in pointing out the lack of substance in the campaign; almost as if many political reporters are personally affronted by the whole thing.
I don’t personally think that he would necessarily make that terrible a Governer, but in the end, I don’t think Kinky himself seriously believes he’s going to win the election. More likely, a couple of years from now we’ll see the latest installment of Kinky Friedman, amateur detective, in which he gets caught up in some sort of crime in the setting of the Texas gubernatorial race.
Rick Perry is having the time of his life. He might have had a tough campaign if there were only one opponent. But, with the 4 way race, Perry has this one locked up.
The only good thing is he has no real power except to shoot off his mouth.
I get the distinct impression that Kinky has no real plans on how to implement many of his goals. I also get the impression that he’s pretty much making everything up as he goes along, according to his whim of the moment. While this can be a good thing in an artist, I prefer my politicians/statespeople to think things through a bit longer. I agree with him on many of the issues that need to be looked at. However, I don’t think he has any realistic plans on how to improve things. Friedman’s a clown. While we’ve had clowns in the governor’s office before, they didn’t intend to be clowns.
If it comes down to a choice between Perry and Friedman, though, I’ll vote for Kinky.
Fairly low. In the 15 polls I’ve found that have been conducted in this race since February, he has never polled above 22% of the vote, has never led a poll, and has only been second in two of the polls. In the most recent poll, he’s in fourth place with 16% of the vote.
Of course, this has a negative impact on the quiet dignity that has always prevailed in Texas politics… Kind of like Meerkat Manor if the meerkats were on acid.
We thought similar things about Jesse Ventura. Funny the people who don’t vote until they have the opportunity to elect a kook who wears a boa.
(Jesse turned out to be not a bad governor - we’ve had worse - we currently have worse).
A feather boa and a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt at the Inaugaral Party. If only he weren’t such a lout…
Can I vote for Ann Richards instead?
Insert appropriate Schwarzenegger joke here…
The flame is gone, but the light endures.
My coffee shop served as a petition signing station for him. I meet the man and seems like a decent sort.
We talk a lot about politics in my shop and I’d say most of the people who come in are voting kinky. A lot of peope who you wouldn’t think are going to vote for him, are saying they will. Little old ladies, republicans, dems…yeah more dems than pubbies but there a are metric crap load of pubbies who are pissed at perry.
Kinky is using Venturas campaign manager…there is a good number of people who have never voted before (especially young people) are going to vote for him because that is considered the cool thing to do. Since the polls mainly poll people who voted before it could be quite differant.
I also see more kinky bumper stickers than I do pubbie or dem or strayhorn…a lot more. I’ve yet to meet ANYONE who said they were voting for strayhorn but I know they exist.
As for Perry having an easier time of it. The dems didn’t have a chance in hell of beating him on their own. Kinky MIGHT have a chance. the dems and kinky have a better chance with strayhorn running because while kinky is drawing votes from both partys, Strayhorn draws votes from the pubbie side almost exclusively. I’ll be voting for kinky, as will my wife, my sister, her husband, her son, my mother and my father.
“Don’t kvetch with Texas!”
Except Arnie is rarely funny, and actually a pretty decent governor. Of course, when your comparison is to Grey Davis, anybody looks pretty decent. Davis made slime-mold look good.
Speaking as a pretty solidly right-winger who thinks Rick Perry is a lousy administrator…
I think it would be nice if Perry had a qualified, attractive opponent. He doesn’t. Kinky is a bad joke. He not only can’t win, I don’t even think he can finish 3rd.
zogby poll in August:
Perry: 35%
Kinky: 23%
Bell: 23%
Strayhorn: 10%
ah…september Zogby polls
Perry 30.7
Bell 25.3
Friedman 22.4
Strahorn 11.1
And since that doesnt take into account the voters who didn’t vote last time…which is 75 percent of texas and that is who Kinky is really going after it could well be a interesting race.
It’s sad that you never saw an interview or heard a radio appearance of his before he got into politics. The guys is actually funnier than most comedians. Great comic timing and sharp as hell. He’s considered one of the top guests of all-time on the Howard Stern show (and yes, I know the difference between Arnold and Fake Arnold.)
I really have no dog in the TX governor fight but I’d love to see an independent freethinker get in there and do a great job. If he can do that, he has my support. If he just doing this to write a novel, though, fuck him. I really dislike stunt campaigns.
Yeah, I’ve seen the polls, and I stand by my prediction.
Kinky’s only hope for a decent showing (not a victory, minbd you, just a decent showing) was this: maybe, just maybe, a lot of Democrats would get a kick out of voting for him, once they’d decided Bell had no chance.
In reality, I think most Demcorats who bother to vote will vote for Bell.