Thursday, September 14, 2006
 
Smart
At the risk of incurring more comments from the pro and anti Kinky Friedman corners of the blogoverse, I would like to take a minute to look at his strategy.

He has no money. Strayhorn has 10 million dollars, Perry has probably twice that, and Chris Bell probably has...something...

So he can't blanket Texas with TV ads, although he has a few running at the moment, and he can't mail 100 pieces of mail to everyone in the state.

But he can talk.

And he talks a lot.

Kinky is the King of Earned Media. Everytime he opens his mouth, whether to say something intelligent or just plain dumb, there are a dozen reporters there to jot it down. My Google Alert for him pulls down at least 15 articles a day; most of them are from across Texas, and I do mean across Texas, everywhere from El Paso to Lubbock to Laredo to Houston and back again. But he also pops up in California, DC, Oregon, Michigan---France, UK, Malaysia (it's true), the list goes on.

People hearing about him could be much better for him then people actually seeing or hearing him.

For example: This recent article,
This appeared in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, but was on the AP wire so will blanket the state and beyond.

Let's pull out some vintage Kinkyisms:
(This is the first line of the article)

Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman said Wednesday he favored legalizing marijuana to keep nonviolent users out of prison and said he would push to release those already in prison for the offense to free prison space for more violent criminals.

"I think that's long overdue,....We've pretty well lost the war on drugs doing it the way we're doing it. Drugs are more available and cheaper than ever before. What we're doing is not working."

(I think he's right, and if everyone who actually did drugs would just stand up and admit it, then marijuana would be legal about 30 minutes later. But who would say that?)

He said one of the first calls he'd make as governor would be to Robert Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam in Houston, who he said "the Lord put in my path at the Austin airport earlier this year."

"He's a very visionary man," Friedman said. "You would think we're at opposite poles, but we're not. That's the guy I would tap. I would tap him to help us get those gangsters and thugs and crackheads out of [Houston].



(So Kinky said Houston was full of "crackheads" who had to evacuate Louisiana last year and who were causing Houston's crime rate to go up. People got freaked out and his first response was: I can call them crackheads because I used to be a cokehead, I sympathize. And now he wants to talk to the head of NOI in Houston. How do you respond to that? Have you pissed anyone off? Or have you pissed off so many people that it balances out?)



"I don't mind being called a flip-flopper," he said, a description Perry's campaign has placed on him. "I think we actually could use a flip-flopper as governor because a flip-flopper is a human being open to change, and God knows change is what we need now. We don't need a guy who is driving this train into a ditch because he stayed the course. And I mean the governor."


(Why couldn't John Kerry have said this, just once!)

He also said he would use one of the governor's few powerful roles in appointing state board members to replace as many as he could...."You clean house," he said. "You get the old farts out of there. You put a bunch of young people in and you put a bunch of people who care about Texas. It's pretty simple."

(Hard to argue with.)

On the death penalty, he said he would more carefully look at capital cases approaching execution and suggested he would be more liberal in using the governor's authority to grant a one-time 30-day reprieve to condemned killers.

"I would be careful killing a guy," he said. "I think there are people who need to die, but the question I've asked mostly is: When was the last time we've executed a rich man in Texas?

"We're working with a very imperfect system and I think we've made mistakes. I would not say if it was good enough for the jury, it's good enough for me. I'm not Susan Sarandon. I don't think every murderer is innocent. I would take these case by case."


That's what he does so well; if a "Democrat" said we should take a close look at death penalty cases the Republicans would label them as soft on crime. But Kinky just states it plainly and phrases it in such a natural way that it seems like the only thing to do.

Sometimes he says really stupid things, the "crackhead" line was probably too far, but so much of what he says walks a line that very few candidates even try to walk. He's just being himself, but he's also discussing very serious issues.

I think Democrats should take note...




(oh, and by the way, Kinky is also up for the Thurber Prize for Humor Writing. Past winners include Jon Stewart, David Sedaris and Christopher Buckley. Just thought you should know.)






Monday, September 11, 2006
 
Wisdom
"I'm the George W. Bush of hip-hop -- nobody likes me, but I'm still gonna run it for the next four years" -- 50 Cent (People).

Friday, September 08, 2006
 
Crazy Republicans On HORSES!!!!




















Although I have to admit, I'd rather see a daffy Senator Harris, then continue with racist Senator Allen. It's a tough call, but one that I'm comfortable with. After all, Kitty Harris is funny, Georgie is just scary.

 
Go Ahead and Gobble Up a Slice of Craziness






(How awkward must it have been to be served the slice with her crazy eyes staring up at you?)

So HOT Right Now

--Sting Rays

--DUI's (Mel, that kid from the 6th Sense, Paris, a couple pro football players, etc.)

--Court Appointed Presdients (Once Canada does it we'll have the whole continent)

--Pluto's Chances for a Comeback

--Katie Mania (Couric and Harris)


So NOT hot Right Now

--ABC DocuDramas

--Al Gore running for President (weep)

--Spending Time with Your Candidate for Senate (See: Bush, Jeb)

--Karl Rove going to prison (sigh)

 
That Explains It



Exhibit A.
No one likes Joey Lieberman anymore. The people of CT voted him out of office.

Exhibit B.
No one likes G-Dubb anymore. Everyone thinks he's a creep.

Everyone knows this. Except for the two of them.
Why is that?

Well maybe it's because they were never told they were so unpopular.

Tracy Costin, President of Polling firm DataUSA, has pled guilty to fraud. Evidently the polling company would just make up answers. The callers would not really call everyone they said they were calling, and sometimes wouldn't call anyone at all.

Now polls are a politician's lifeblood, it's the only way for them to truly know what their constituents are thinking. Like them or not, and I can't think of a better way of gauging public support than asking the public what they support, polls are everything. They determine a campaign's message, they determine which commercial to air, they determine which bill to propose and what tie to wear with what speech.

Two of Costin's clients: Joe Lieberman and George W. Bush.

Here's the best part:
"FBI Special Agent Jeff Rovelli said 50 percent of information compiled by DataUSA and transmitted to Bush's campaign was falsified, the Connecticut Post reported Thursday."

Now they must have other pollsters, but when people talk about Liebs and Bush being "out of touch," now we know why.

They're not stupid or mean, they're just gullible.

 
Have no Fear for JennyG

One of the GOP's biggest targets this year is first term incumbent Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-Michigan). She has been a good Governor (and is clearly the most fashionable Guv in the country, sorry Mitt) but Michigan's economy sucks and she might get blamed for it.

Recent polls have shown her in a dead heat against Amway salesman (yeah, weird that Amway still exists huh?) Dick DeVos. Bad news for an incumbent...

But, a quick look at the MONEY makes me a lot less nervous about this race. DeVos has spent more than 20 MILLION dollars to make this race even, while Jenny still has more than 7 MILLION in the bank waiting to be used.

If DeVos needs to spend money at this clip just to make this a competitive race then I think she's going to be fine. Can he really keep this up? Sure he's a millionaire, but at some point the returns will start to level out. Granholm has barely started to spend money, and once she does I expect her numbers to go back up. I think she holds on to her seat by two or three points.


Raised Spent
Period YTD Period YTD CoH
GRANHOLM $7.8M $19.0M $7.7M $11.6M $7.3M
DeVOS $4.1M $21.6M $4.5M $21.0M $596K

Wednesday, September 06, 2006
 
She Won!!!!!

Katherine Harris won her Republican primary last night, and is now the official GOP candidate for Senate. She's running against the popular incumbent Bill Nelson, who probably would have been vulnerable to a candidate that didn't say you should only elect Christians, or you'd be "legislating sin." Or a candidate who didn't flirt with 17 year olds trying to interview her. Or a candidate who has burned through 17 campaign managers in six months (seriously, how many high level campaign aides can she really have?)...the list of craziness goes on and on.

Oh I almost forgot my favorite one (alright we'll do one more). In the promotions for a fundraiser she was having she listed NINE (9) prominent Republican Floridians who were going to join her on stage. But the problem was that these guys didn't know they were supposed to be there, they didn't endorse her, and none of them wanted to be anywhere near her. So they didn't show up. Which led Harris to say that the event was changed at the last second because a tree fell on the airplane hangar it was supposed to originally be in. (It's true, she said that. She was lying.)

This campaign will go down as one of the most poorly run human endeavors (of any kind) in history. She could lose by 90 points, seriously!

But you have to admire someone who told her entire party to go fuck themselves. Jeb, Rove, and rumors are the President all sat her down and told her to drop out. But she stood her ground, and wouldn't let her ego get in the way between the party and a good loss. That's the kind of attitude I'd like to see more of in today's GOP.

Friday, September 01, 2006
 
Question?
Was Al Gore really on the MTV Video Music Awards?

That's cool...I think.

 
Breaking News!!!
Thurgood Marshall award NOT given to openly racist United States Senator.

George Allen.

Sigh.

Here's a picture of him (far left) with the leaders of one of the largest white supremacist groups in the nation. The "Council of Conservative Citizens" is what they renamed themselves after they realized the "White Citizen's Council" wasn't going to work anymore (that's not a joke). And yes that's Charlton Heston at the end (isn't he dead yet?).

Here's an article from The Nation on this picture and why Georgie's so close to his fellow Grand Dragons.

The same Senator who used to wear a Confederate Flag pin.

The same Senator who used to proudly display a noose in his office.

The same Senator who called an Indian-American man "Macaca" in front of a bunch of old white people. (And yes that word is a racial slur; it's a French slur for Africans (Allen's Mother is Tunisian) and it seems it might be a code word that white supremacists use to describe everyone else....He Knew What He Was Saying.)

This same Senator was being given an award from the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund. Donors freaked out. Allen refused the award. Read more here.

Granted he was getting the award for sponsoring a bill that gave millions of dollars to HBCUs; it's a good thing, but chances are Allen didn't really want word of this to spread out to all of his racist backers. So once the award got the smallest inkling of press--he ran as fast as he could.

It's simple. George Allen is an old time white supremacist. "Racist" doesn't even count; that's too prosaic and too common to describe where he's coming from. He was elected Governor and then Senator with the help of people like those guys up there in that picture. He hangs out with people who have a deep seated belief in the inferiority of people of color.

Any time he does something for non-white people--he's faking.

Until then, this is just another reminder why he must be defeated this November. This man WILL run for President, and he will pull every race-baiting trick he needs to in order to win South Carolina and any other Southern states on Super Tuesday.

I can only hope that eventually someone will get him on tape espousing his true beliefs. When that happens, he's done. Can't run for President, and if it happens before November he can't be reelected Senator--sorry George open racism won't work even in Virginia.

It's just a matter of time before he reveals himself (yes, he's actually that scary), let's just hope that he's not in the White House when he does.

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