Demagogue

With the assistance of Jesse Ventura's campaign manager, Kinky Friedman is running for Governor of Texas. There are parts of his platform I surely can't support, but he's got to be better than the current resident of the Governor's Mansion, Rick Perry.

If nothing else, Kinky is entertaining. I think his campaign slogan--"Why the Hell Not?"--could use a bit of work. Still, I think his platform has something to appeal to everyone, from de-wussification to the death penalty ("Two thousand years ago an innocent man named Jesus Christ was executed; Kinky’s question is: 'What have we learned in two thousand years?'"). And he's bound to keep coming up with provocative ideas like these:

If Kinky’s elected, the oft-busted Willie Nelson [a friend of Kinky's] will head the Texas Rangers. Kinky’s hairdresser and business partner, Palestinian Farouk Shami, will be Texas’ ambassador to Israel.

Yes, I know Texas has no ambassador to Israel, but that's the kind of outside-the-box thinking we so desparately need these days.

Unfortunately, Texas has some of the most prohibitive ballot-access rules in the nation for third-party candidates. Friedman has to collect more than 45,000 signatures. He can't start until after the primary in March 2006, and he'll then have only two months to do it. Signatures must come from registered voters, but no one who voted in the Democratic or GOP primary (or any other party primary) can sign. But he does seem to be taking this seriously, or at least as seriously as he's capable of taking anything, and maybe he'll make it.