[AGL] Front Page Kinky

[Harry Edwards]

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Kinky style: May I offend you for your vote?

Friedman feeling his way from career as musician, writer to politics.

By W. Gardner Selby
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, April 07, 2006

Offensive strategy? Heck yeah, Kinky says

Musician-writer Kinky Friedman, kind of a flashing neon sign running 
for governor, has lately explored a theme that could make his bid 
shimmer or burn out. He wants to win by provocation or, as he framed it 
in an expletive-laced conversation, "the more people I offend, the more 
people will like me."

Friedman, 61, declared his candidacy last year by vowing to "de-wussify 
Texas." He and Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the state comptroller, are 
trying to reach the ballot as independents by raising 45,540 
votersignatures each. They have until May 11 to turn in petitions.

Greg Thielemann, a political scientist at the University of Texas at 
Dallas, signed a Friedman petition and said he sees Texans who usually 
tune out beginning to tune in.

"He hits nerves," he said. "In some ways, the more outrageous he 
becomes, the more nerves he hits. I'm not even sure it's a strategy 
that is designed to win votes. It might just be him."

Voters could eye five candidates for governorin November counting GOP 
Gov. Rick Perry, Democratic nominee Chris Bell and Libertarian James 
Werner. And the victor could carry less than half the vote for the 
first time since Ann Richards took 49.5 percent in 1990.

Friedman, stressing his desire to legalize casinos in Texas and to 
enlist Willie Nelson and maybe Lance Armstrong as advisers, told 
200-plus people at St. Edward's University on Monday that Texas needs 
an offensive governor.

"That's the problem with politicians; they don't want to offend 
anybody. In so doing, though, they offend all of us." Friedman later 
questioned any conflictbetween cracking wise and delivering a message 
voters weigh seriously. "I'm not a politician," he said. "I'm a 
compassionate redneck; relate to me different than these guys or you 
won't get accurate results."

Saying he's not sure how he'd fulfill his goal of returning surplus 
state revenue to taxpayers, Friedman gestured toward aides. "If these 
guys have their way, within time I'll have a sharp, eight-second answer 
to every (expletive) thing, and it'll be just like any (expletive) 
idiot can give you. I know: That's a politician."

So sayeth Friedman

Friedman has long honed humor that hurts in irreverent songs and 
detective novels. Now he's at risk of injury by excerpt. In a November 
CNBC interview, for instance, he was pressed on a line in his 1987 
novel, "A Case of Lone Star," comparing New York to "a Negro talking to 
himself."

Friedman said he saw nothing wrong and even said of sexual predators: 
"Throw them in prison and throw away the key and make them listen to a 
Negro talking to himself." Video excerpts appeared online on the Burnt 
Orange Report, a pro-Democrat blog.

This week, Friedman called the line "a poetic way of describing a 
junkie. I mean, you could say a heroin addict walking down the street. 
But if you're writing prose, you might say a Negro talking to himself." 
The line did not cause an uproar, though his campaign reports fielding 
a few e-mails.

Like other challengers, Friedman bemoans Perry's five-plus years as 
governor. Unlike others, he acknowledges his own proposals as 
unfinished ? a trait that may have fueled the launch of an 
anti-Friedman Web site that purports to single out his inconsistencies 
on issues such as abortion, the death penalty and his voting history.

At St. Edward's, he swung hardest on illegal immigration, saying: 
"Perry's policy has been: Bring us your tired, your poor, your gangs, 
your drugs, your terrorists, your bombs, welcome to Texas. You know, 
that's why you find dead bodies in the back of cargo container trucks 
on Texas soil."

Perry said Thursday that he ushered in the first Senate panel on the 
border and has been to the border more than other statewide officials. 
"It's one thing to criticize, but to criticize without knowledge is 
even worse," Perry said.

Perry's campaign called Friedman's border proposal ludicrous. That plan 
calls for breaking up the border into five jurisdictions, assigning 
each one to a Mexican general, and putting millions of dollars into 
bank accounts for each.

"Each time we catch an illegal crossing through a general's 
jurisdiction," Friedman has said, "we withdraw $5,000 from that 
account. That'll solve the problem." His position on immigration has 
been wobbly. On March 28, his campaign provided a statement describing 
Friedman as favoring a guest worker program and language classifying 
illegal immigrants as felons. But Friedman repudiated the felon element 
at St. Edward's; a spokeswoman said the initial statement was posted 
erroneously.

Friedman said Tuesday that he never called immigrants felons, calling a 
reporter "full of (expletive)" before apologizing. As governor, he 
said, he'd consult Govs. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Janet 
Napolitano of Arizona plus Tony Garza, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, 
on how to help on the border.

Humor as his guide

On education, Friedman favors doing away with the state-mandated test 
taken by public school students. At St. Edward's, he said: "Right now 
we have 254 counties, 254 independent school districts. I think we have 
254 monkeys. I want one gorilla running this thing. And the kind of 
person I want . . . is a guy like Lance Armstrong, who is capable of 
inspiring millions of people, who's got great guts, and who has managed 
to irritate the French for seven years in a row. A guy like that who 
said, 'OK, I'll fix education in Texas,' and it would get done." Aides 
afterward told Friedman there are more than 1,000 school districts.

Friedman later called Armstrong's role hypothetical; he has not talked 
to him of it.

The candidate wants schools to teach the Ten Commandments, which he 
calls the 10 suggestions. "I would have some kind of revolving prayer, 
a multiple religions thing."

Other Friedman ideas: Expanding biodiesel use for cars and buses; a 
listed gubernatorial phone number with times folks could call him to 
chat; a moratorium on executions; limited or no contact between 
Friedman and lobbyists; and a 1 percent bump in the state's severance 
tax on oil and gas.

His damn-'em-all summary: "Get the politicians out of politics. I want 
the guy who says never re-elect anybody.

"Everything I say is serious, even the 10 Mexican generals. One eye is 
laughing, and one eye is crying. That's the way it should be. Humor 
sails very close to the truth. And I try to sail as close as I can to 
the truth without sinking the ship."