RIP Kinky Friedman

Via Kuff, I saw the Trib story this morning. More at the Chron. Yet more at the Trib in a longform, focused on the 2006 gubernatorial race. 

As a newspaper editor, remembering that campaign, including being part of a group interview of Kinky after a campaign gig, I knew already then what Kuff learned years later:

Kinky was entertainer first, politician second. 

In fact, I think that, despite admonitions from people like me to "Pivot" to more serious, like Jesse Ventura, then in the middle of his Minnesota gubernatorial time, he was actually afraid he might win.

At the same time, he had the most confused campaign in the world, on stances. The Venn diagram of people supporting both legalized marijuana and open prayer in public schools ain't big in Texas today and was microscopic in 2006. And, tho he ran as a Democrat later, it was as a ConservaDem of some sort, then, too, a Jim Hightower who couldn't get serious and couldn't get left-populist, trying to get Hightower's Ag Commish seat, and I don't think the punditocracy in 2006 got him. And, on him being a ConservaDem and one other thing, in 2006? Yeah, it was fun joking, spinning off him stressing his Jewish heritage, about how he'd bring kosher government to Austin. Given all his other stances, today? He'd be turning the DPS loose on pro-Palestinian protestors as much as Abbott did. (That's the pro-Palestinian protestors at places like Rice and UT that ConservaDem Kuff still won't mention.)

Contra Kuff, Kinky being in the 2006 gov race didn't cost the Dems the chance to beat Tricky Ricky Perry. Milquetoast Chris Bell wasn't winning, no way, no how. (And, contra Kuff, it was actually a six-person race; the Libertarians were in, as was write-in James Dillon.)

So, since Kinky's been out of the political angles for years, this doesn't warrant the focus of a full takedown obit of Kinky, but it is a mild one, and a bankshot on Kuff, too.