Posted on 10/16/2006 2:38:51 PM PDT by weegee
One of the best pieces of advice given to people who inherit money or win the lottery is to not make any important decisions immediately.
So what does Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell do upon receiving a check for $1 million?
He leaves a telephone message on Kinky Friedman's cell phone asking the Kinkster to meet with him for the purpose of discussing why Friedman should drop out of the race to help Bell defeat Gov. Rick Perry.
How stupid is this?
Let's just say we're glad Bell is not in charge of negotiating with North Korea.
One of the most important skills in politics is being able to understand the concerns and motivations of others.
Friedman, for example, is not coming from the same place as Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the other independent in the race.
A drug-like euphoria Strayhorn became an independent because she figured she couldn't win the Republican primary. Years earlier she became a Republican because she figured she couldn't win as a Democrat.
Now this is the kind of practical politician with whom, under certain circumstances, one might be able to cut a deal.
Kinky Friedman is nothing of the sort. Kerr County records measure his interest in electing a Democrat.
He has voted only once since 1994. That was in 2004 when, he told the Dallas Morning News, he voted for President Bush, whom he described as "a good man trapped in a Republican's body."
Friedman is, in other words, the passionate personification of "none of the above." He clearly believes that the Democrats are no better than the Republicans.
So what, other than the drug-like euphoria of being handed a check for a million bucks, could make Bell think Friedman would quit in order to help him defeat Perry?
A refusal to apologize And to leave a voice mail message proposing the plot? Did Bell not even consider how that would play when (not if) it was made public?
It was the kind of rookie mistake that will make million-dollar-donor John O'Quinn's goal of hitting up other rich trial lawyers on Bell's behalf even harder to achieve.
It was also the same rookie mistake that has Kinky Friedman reeling over racial terminology.
In politics, words are very important — not only what is said, but how it is said.
The reason is that how it is said has a huge impact on how it is heard. And whether it's in a private phone message to a political rival or a public statement referring to a racial bloc, a politician needs to anticipate how it will be heard.
Friedman was the only one of the four major candidates for governor not to be invited to the Texas NAACP convention this week after he refused to apologize for the use of the N-word in comic routines 25 years ago.
A year-old television interview also appeared in which he said he would put sexual predators in prison "and throw away the key and make them listen to a Negro talking to himself."
Friedman says such usages are intended as satire exposing racism.
But black people, who have suffered a long, tortured history at the hands of white people who talked that way, seem to have a hard time getting the joke.
In fact, I don't get the joke either, the recent one or the old one.
As it happens, I was in the audience 25 years ago. I was living in New York and missing Texas a lot. I saw that Kinky was playing at the then-famous Lone Star Cafe in Greenwich Village.
I still have his fine mid-1970s album that included They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore. I knew every word of every song and was eager to hear him in person.
But I walked out after getting tired of him spacing his songs with ramblings that included multiple uses of the N-word.
If there was satire, it was lost on me. And I'm not an absolutist on this.
Mark Twain used the offensive word to good satirical effect in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
But with Friedman, I just took it to be the cocaine talking.
Friedman says he quit cocaine after returning to Kerrville in 1985.
"I know the effect cocaine and many of these drugs have on your willpower and your dreams," he told my colleague R.G. Ratcliffe last month. "They distance you from your better angels."
I can't explain Friedman's more recent gaffes. But for someone who wants to lead Texas, it's not good enough to say you're a satirist and suggest that those who take offense are pathetically politically correct.
Houston/Texas PING
Imus should be interesting tomorrow morning.
This is actually funny when the "established" party candidate is practically begging the third party guy to get out. Bell is polling a distant 3rd behind Perry and MawMawhorn. Even his million dollar windfall from attorney John O'Quinn isn't helping. Texas politics at its best.
Kinky Friedman is a JERK! He is a dabbler; he sings silly songs; he is a semi-sucessful writer of alleged mysteries; he dreams of being something more than what he is -- a fool! That a dope like Friedman can actually run for office tells us all that America is strong and weak at the same time!
OK, Rick usually seems to have a lefty lean, at least to me. So I guess this means he won't come out for the Kinkster. Texas Monthly opined it would be Perry #1, Bell #2, Strayhorn #3 and Kinky in 4th a couple of months ago, looks like a safe bet to me.
I love it!
I guess Kinky still wants to "diddle those good old christian girls" as he suggests in one of his old songs, but I find him a breath of fresh air. Texas is big enough for Kinky, Willie, a stray, horny old woman, and Governor Perry.
Poor Rick Casey. He doesn't know who to support.
Not Kinky, not Bell, certainly not Perry. Does he hold his nose and vote for Strayhorn, a complete opportunist with no values whatsoever?
Probably.
"Must be those teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs..."
I still don't know who Kinky is, other than that he is supposedly famous.
Okay wegee, Who woke you up?
Well at least he would have someone who is a close match to his own self.
He's famous in Austin. And I think that has politicians in Austin skeered. Wonder if any of them ever did rails of cocaine WITH Kinky (he's confessed to it and some of them would probably wish he'd shut up).
It'll be a big embarassment for the Democrat candidate to come in THIRD. Howie Dean and other Dems are working on a "take back Texas" campaign.
Hell no, we don't want the socialist party. But as immigrants come from socialist countries and those with openly socialist candidates, the Dems may have a chance to one day take "back" Texas. It won't be about educating the voters as to why "socialism is not evil", it'll be by importing voters who never were exposed to the thought that socialism IS evil and that it limits the worth of a man.
weegee, did you hear that some lawyer gave Bell over $1 million for his campaign again? I tried to find something on FR, but seems nobody has posted the article.
He's in one man's pocket (has financed almost half the campaign).
Oct. 17, 2006, 11:13PM
CAMPAIGN 2006
Bell backer signs $1.5 million loan
Lawyer has now financed almost half the campaign
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4267273.html
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - Houston trial lawyer John O'Quinn signed a $1.5 million bank loan for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell on Tuesday, bringing O'Quinn's investment in Bell's campaign to $2.5 million.
Do you think this article merits a thread of its own? I quit posting threads from work. I got to many tracking bugs on my system.
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