If Friedman is getting more serious, the reason is simple: The race itself is getting more serious. A Zogby Poll, released in November, indicated 21 percent of likely voters would cast their ballots for Friedman, compared to 41 percent for Perry. It is still an uphill climb, but Friedman and his supporters can see the mountaintop. Author, Musician, and candidate for Governor of Texas, Kinky Friedman served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia in the 1960's.
Kinky Friedman is getting serious
Friedman a serious poliltician? Why not?
Web Posted: 01/08/2006 12:00 AM CST
Robert Seltzer
Associate Editorial Page Editor
Friedman's youth vote coordinator, Meagan Wilder, works diligently at his campaign headquarters in Austin last week. His staff, dedicated to electing the musician/author to office, doesn't consider the campaign a joke.
Oh, Friedman is a politician, all right. But if there is any connection between the "Kinkster" and the other Texas gubernatorial candidates, the bond is superficial. All have bumper stickers or soon will have.
How many of his rivals, though, will boast bumper stickers as irreverent as this: "Kinky Friedman, why the hell not?" Imagine driving along Interstate 10 and spotting this slogan on the back of a pickup: "Rick Perry, why the hell not?" Or this from Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Republican who announced last week she will run as an independent: "Strayhorn for governor, how hard can it be?"
But back to that red meat. Friedman, an independent, cannot pander to his base because he has no base. And if he did, he would not know what it was.
"I support gay marriage, and I support prayer in school," he said, sitting in the living room of his cabin in Medina last month. "You know why I support prayer in school? What's wrong with a kid believing in something?"
Friedman paused, letting his comments sink in.
"No committee would ever come up with me as a candidate," he said. "Red meat? My base is the people of Texas."
Friedman, author, humorist and country music singer, has an effective delivery dry, terse and biting. He makes pronouncements without making them sound like pronouncements. His messages some of which he has repeated so often that they have turned into slogans are rooted in common sense and wry humor.
Some observers are starting to see more common sense and less wry humor. What gives? Kinky Friedman without punch lines is like Rick Perry without hair spray.
Don Imus, whose nationally syndicated radio show is simulcast on cable TV, supports Friedman, who announced his candidacy on the morning program. That was back in February. Friedman, his face turning pink in the pre-dawn cold, stood in front of the Alamo, full of enthusiasm and one-liners.
"I got 37 write-in votes in the Iraqi election," he deadpanned.
Imus wants that Kinkster back. He noted recently that Friedman is getting too serious, that his humor is drowning in a sea of murky issues. Where is the Friedman who could barbecue opponents with nothing hotter than his cigar and his wit?
Courtesy Photo
Staffers are mailing the Kinky Friedman action doll across the country to drum up support.
"I don't know if I'm getting more serious or not," he said, puffing on his ubiquitous cigar in his Hill Country cabin. "What politicians lack is a sense of humor, a sense of reality and a sense of community service. That's what I bring to the party.
"The only time the Democrats and Republicans get off their asses is to attack each other. The Democrats can't get any traction, and the Republicans can't get any legislation. Why the hell not?"
If Friedman is getting more serious, the reason is simple: The race itself is getting more serious. A Zogby Poll, released in November, indicated 21 percent of likely voters would cast their ballots for Friedman, compared to 41 percent for Perry. It is still an uphill climb, but Friedman and his supporters can see the mountaintop.
"The poll was exciting news," Friedman said. "If we win, we'll see bluebonnets springing up all over Texas. It won't be an election. It will be an epiphany."
So 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."
Ah, yes, the talking action figure, a 13-inch-tall replica of the man himself, made of the same material that Friedman says went into making Perry plastic. The doll is his Mini Me. He loves it.
"If I'm a rodeo clown, remember it's the clown who saves the cowboy," he said.
It is one of the delicious ironies of this race, but if anything reflects the seriousness of the campaign, it is the talking action figure. Friedman is offering the dolls on his Web site, and his campaign workers have started sending them off to cities throughout the country. They work together, volunteers and staffers, panting and sweating as they stuff the dolls into boxes.
"It's hard work, but it's worth it," Layton Hayes, 24, a volunteer who runs a graphic design business in Austin, said. "I saw Kinky on 'Imus' one morning, and I was really attracted to his approach. It wasn't necessarily his stance on the issues. It was that he seemed to care. I think we need a nonpolitical politician running the state."
The campaign headquarters, a 12,000-square-foot building in Austin, is bursting with dolls, T-shirts and enthusiasm, although volunteers and staffers realize that the struggle will require the same kind of sweat equity they devote to packing the talking action figures.
"I'm committed to this effort," Haley Johnson, 18, a receptionist at the headquarters, said.
A freshman at the University of the Incarnate Word, she started working for the campaign as an intern in a political science class.
"I got so involved that I'm working full time now," she said. "They're holding my scholarship for me. This has changed my life."
Trying to capitalize on that enthusiasm throughout the state, campaign officials are coordinating petition signature drives in key counties, including Bexar.
"Everything depends on getting him on the ballot," Reid Nelson, a staffer who is heading the petition drive, said. "It's going to be a challenge, but I'm optimistic. It's going to happen."
Is two months or one month, in the case of a runoff enough time to get all the signatures?
"We could use six months," Mark Leszkiewicz, another staffer, said.
With the calendar their biggest enemy, the workers have to compress six months into two or one. And, as the struggle proceeds, they are encouraged by the success of their spiritual godfather. That would be Jesse Ventura, the ex-wrestler who overcame similar odds to become the governor of Minnesota in 1998.
"Jesse wasn't anywhere near 21 percent in a poll at this point in the campaign," campaign director Dean Barkley, who also ran the campaign for Ventura almost 10 years ago, said. "That's remarkable. Kinky just has to keep on being Kinky. People are so frustrated with politics."
Yet while that iconoclasm attracts some people, it may repel others. Friedman likes to talk issues, but in the midst of the discussions, it is clear that he is still formulating his positions on some of those topics. Will his groping for answers prove a liability?
"To expect the governor himself to come up with all the answers is crazy," Barkley said. "There's enough people who want to do the right thing. They just need to be inspired, and Kinky can do that."
John Jordan, another campaign worker, agrees.
"Just as some politicians have good hair, Kinky has a good aura," he said. "He's charismatic and thoughtful, and he can get people to listen to him."
But to do that, Friedman may have to get more serious. Then, again, no matter how somber he gets, his wit always intrudes. Always.
"If you're poor, you better not be born in Texas," he said.
Then, apparently tired of discussing how serious he has become, Friedman launched into a series of one-liners.
"I'd rather be a dead Gram Parsons than a live Garth Brooks."
"I don't think Rick Perry is the devil. I think he's the devil's valet."
"I'll keep us out of war with Oklahoma."
"I don't have many supporters, but the ones I have all own guns."
"Texas has a Capitol built for giants, but it's inhabited by midgets."
"I'm going to de-wussify Texas if I have to do it one wuss at a time."
Friedman getting serious about the campaign?
How hard can it be?
rseltzer@express-news.net
