The question quickly arises: for its own spiritual nourishment and comedic relief, can Texas afford NOT to elect as its next governor, the one and only Kinky Friedman? The declared candidate is an ex-Peace Corps worker, country music troubador and fiction writer.

The famed Kinkster's personality is fairly mammoth, and a buzzard shorely wouldn't sneeze at his intellect. Kinky's command of the issues, as we'll see below, is, well, one-of-a-kind. I can say this: What a personna, and what friends he has! Is that not one-third the essence of electoral politics right there? The famed leader of Kinky Friedman and Texas Jewboys, singer of "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Any More," and noted mystery novelist is runnin' hard. Here's the steer-poop.

Friedman is out campaigning, spreading his vision to supporters in San Antonio, Fort Worth, the Rio Grande Valley. He appealed for funds at the Willie Nelson picnic in October, raising about $150,000. Friedman said Bob Dylan told him he wanted to help out. "They were in Dylan's bus, Willie and Dylan, on tour in Fort Worth, before the picnic," Friedman recalled. "And Dylan calls me up, and he says he wants some Kinky campaign posters, one for the bus, one for his boxing gym and one for his office." Then Nelson, apparently thinking Friedman was more adept with words than numbers, got back on the line after Dylan was through. "That's three posters, Kinky," Nelson told the candidate. "Three."

As he maneuvers his way through the campaign, Friedman recalls some valuable advice that former President Bill Clinton gave him when the two met in Austin recently. "He told me, 'Pick two issues that are close to your heart and hammer them home,'" Friedman said. So he has picked education and immigration. The state government, he said, has botched both issues. So he supports pay raises for teachers, and he has outlined a bizarre plan to protect the border. "You take five Mexican generals and give them a bank account of $1 million each," he said. "Then every time a Mexican national gets caught crossing illegally, you withdraw $5,000 from the general responsible for that sector." Could the plan generate the same kind of controversy that the Minutemen, which some officials view as vigilante groups, have generated on this side of the border? "Look," he said, "I'm just opening this up for discussion. You don't get anywhere unless you talk about it first. No one is talking in Texas. They're afraid to."

Clinton gave Friedman another piece of advice. "It's funny," Friedman said. "He told me, 'Kinky, what connects you to the people is humor. Don't ever lose it.'" As an independent, he will try to maintain his humor while pursuing a serious task, getting 45,539 voters to sign a petition. If he does, his name will be on the November ballot. But there is a rub: Only those who do not vote in the Republican or Democratic primaries can sign the petition, and he has only two months in which to get all the signatures — one month if the primary races force runoffs. "I'll be busy," he said, "but I hope to have my talking action figure do a lot of the work for me."

Cute Kinky, but c'mon. Pay raises for teachers? That's SO not enough, actually. Wrong direction, even. Do you support expanded school choice or not? What about high-bar curricula, state-wide? How to goose increased parental involvment in low-income districts? G'wan, tell it, cowpoke! Where are the Kinkster White Papers? Yer campaign Web site looks OK, but it's more tofutti than prime beef. E-mail me if you need a hand, Kinky. I'll give ya' my non-non-profit rate. Promise.

TECHNORATI TAGS: KINKY FRIEDMAN, TEXAS, GOVERNOR, CAMPAIGN, WILLIE NELSON, SCHOOL CHOICE

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at January 8, 2006 10:15 PM