Kinky working to get signatures

By Gerard MacCrossan
The Daily Times
Published April 13, 2006

The 45,540 target for registered voters signatures is in independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman’s sights. With four weeks remaining until the May 11 deadline, the Kerrville area’s only local candidate seeking the governor’s job was back home for a couple of days to mark the Jewish Passover and a couple of days off the campaign trail.
Speaking by phone from his home near Medina, the Kinkster, as he introduced himself, was frank about the process for petitioning an independent candidate onto the ballot. If successful, he likely will face independent (now Republican Texas Comptroller) Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Democrat Chris Bell and incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry in the November general election.
“ This was designed to keep us off the ballot, but it’s really put us on the map all over the state,” he said. “It’s fun and it’s had an odd effect. It’s inspiring ... particularly the young people; they’re getting on board.
“If you’re old enough to die in Iraq, you’re old enough to fix Texas,” he said he tells them.
On the issues, Friedman started with Texas’ needs.
“We’re 50th in education and in care for the elderly (among the U.S. states),” he said. The fix will come by refusing to meet with lobbyists — which he said former Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota did for his term in office.
“Every time the bell rings, a lobbyist gets his wings,” he described the current legislative process.
Fixing finances
The state’s financing needs revising. Funds could come from introducing casino gambling and retaining the money, and he suggested seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong as the gambling commissioner.
“We invented Texas hold ’em and we can’t even play it here,” he said. “Have people like Lance Armstrong in your administration ... a guy like that who irritated the French for seven years.”
A Internet poll this week in the San Antonio Business Journal put Kinky at 40 percent of the vote, with Rick Perry projected as getting 32 percent. The poll is interesting because it comes from business people who typically are conservative, he said.
“What people really want in Texas, they are drooling for a little bit of honesty,” Friedman said. “I think it was George Washington who said, ‘Politicians need common sense and honesty.’”
Friedman said he doesn’t plan to involve himself in the special session effort to fix school finance.
“I’ll stay as far away as I can,” he said. “If Perry was a CEO and this was a business, we’d have fired him five years ago. They (the Republicans) forget they weren’t hired to attack the Democrats. They were hired to serve the people of Texas.”
Cigars in Ingram
Friedman’s trademark cigar came under fire in a letter to the editor in Tuesday’s Times. In a visit to Ingram Tom Moore High School, he addressed students with cigar in hand and was criticized for violating school rules and promoting a habit that impacts health.
Responding, Friedman said he believes children should be treated like adults.
“I did not smoke the cigar on the school property; I held it,” he said. “I think running the school buses on biodiesel would do more to help the lady’s son’s asthma than seeing a man holding a cigar.”
The situation was similar to the furor raised when he was accused of drinking a can of Guinness during the Dallas St. Patrick’s Day parade. Both incidents, as well as legislation on gay marriage and cheerleading, deflect from the important issues, he said.
“The governor just discovered there is a border (with Mexico),” he said. “This is what (Sen.) John McCain and I talked about (at Texas A&M University last week). I’m not afraid to offend people. The No. 1 thing about politicians is they are afraid to offend people.
“To pretend the border doesn’t exist, like Perry has done for six years, that doesn’t fix it,” Friedman said. “I believe it’s a political reason. Don’t offend the Hispanics; they’re trending Republican now.”
It is the anti-immigration marches in Dallas that are attracting attention. He said the U.S. borders with Mexico need to be secured and green card programs that protect America and immigrant workers introduced.
“Let’s admit we have a serious problem,” Friedman said. “We can’t deport 11 million people. We need their help really.”
He said Hispanics in the Rio Grande Valley pose the question “What are we going to do with all these Mexicans coming over here?”
The answer is education, he said.
Who’ll be governor in 2007
Friedman’s assessment is if the voter turnout is low, Rick Perry will be governor. A high voter turnout will put the Kinkster in Austin, he said.
Money is a key to modern elections.
“That’s what Perry and Strayhorn are counting on,” Friedman said. “They will saturate the TV for the last two months. But the guy with the most money shouldn’t win.”
He said the primary turnouts showed that there is interest in the independent candidates.
“It was one of the lowest turnouts on record for the modern times,” Friedman said. “We believe so many people have saved themselves for Kinky. If God wanted us to vote, he’d have given us candidates.
“The people are angry in Texas,” he added. “With good reason; the politicians are out of touch.”
He said he believes Strayhorn miscalculated her ability to run as an independent.
In Kinky’s only previous run for elected office — an unsuccessful bid for justice of the peace in Kerr County — he ran as a Republican because “I couldn’t do it as a Democrat.”
Strayhorn — who like Perry started out as a Democrat — doesn’t have a party’s support, which will hurt no matter how much money she has.
“Money doesn’t vote, people do,” he said. “If there is a small turnout, Perry will beat her. If there is a big turnout like Ann Richards had (against Clayton Williams) — 50 percent of the voters — I am going to be the governor.
“It’s a sad state that the governor is hoping for a small turnout,” he said. “ If I lose, I retire in a petulant snit and never speak again to anybody.”
He doesn’t believe that he will lose, Friedman added.
“I think this is going to be a real moment for Texas,” he said.

For more information about the Kinky Friedman campaign, visit www.kinkyfriedman.com.
source: http://web.dailytimes.com/story.lasso?ewcd=cfb03ae8a9ec426d