| From Texas Jewboy to Texas Governor? |
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| Written by Thursday Bram | |||||
| Friday, 17 March 2006 | |||||
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Kinky Friedman’s Eccentric Political Bid Kinky Friedman has been a musician, a novelist, a Peace Corp volunteer, a drug addict, and has even rescued abused dogs. Now, he wants to be governor of Texas. In the 70s, Friedman’s band, The Texas Jewboys, infused their music with elements of social activism, mixed thoroughly with satire. The song “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore,” for instance, confronts racism and anti-Semitism with down home country style. In its heyday, the now-defunct band toured with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, but when Friedman’s musical career began to flag, he turned to writing and found success by fictionalizing himself in a series of detective novels bearing such titles as “Greenwich Killing Time,” “Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned,” and most recently, “Ten Little New Yorkers.” Friedman’s latest dramatic flourish is a political campaign to be voted the next governor of Texas. When seasoned journalist Morley Safer of CBS’s 60 Minutes asked him whether the State of Texas is ready for a Jewish governor, Friedman responded, “Absolutely. Listen, I tell people, trust me, I’m a Jew. I’ll hire good people.” But all jokes aside, Friedman thinks that his lack of political experience (not counting his failed bid in the 80s to become Justice of the Peace in Kerrville, Texas) will actually be beneficial. “Politics is the only field in which the more experience you have, the worse you get. And I think musicians can better run this state than politicians. And, hell, beauticians can better run the state than politicians,” Friedman told 60 Minutes. Needless to say, Friedman has a long road ahead of him. Between March and May of this year, he must receive 45,000 signatures to get his name on the ballot in November. Plus, he’s facing incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry in addition to a Democratic challenger. But Friedman is confident that he can secure a win. In the last election for governor, only 29 percent of voters went to the polls. Friedman only needs to mobilize a small number of eligible voters who do not normally vote, and he might be able to swing the election in his favor. “My platform is to remember that when they went out searching for Sam Houston to try to persuade him to be the governor—and he was the greatest governor this state has ever had—rumor has it that they found him drunk sleeping under a bridge with the Indians.” Friedman’s platform focuses on issues of healthcare, renewable energy and reform, especially in education. He is also concerned with the accessibility of government officials to the voters who originally elected them. “When I’m governor…I’ll be the first governor with a listed telephone number,” Friedman promised in the 60 Minutes interview. Although Friedman relies on humor and eccentricity to connect with voters—his campaign slogan is “Why the hell not?” — he doesn’t consider the campaign a joke. In an the same CBS interview, Evan Smith, a top political commentator in Texas, takes Friedman seriously: “I think he’s dead serious. I think that if you ask him whether this is a joke, if you even suggest it’s a joke, he’ll lunge at you.”
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