Just call him Governor Kinky
Livingston (Texas). His dark brown eyes stare at the camera. The cowboy is softly chewing his large cigar, smiling. He puts his arms around a mother and her daughter and poses. On this hot Saturday of mid-October in Livingston, Kinky Friedman seems to be enjoying himself with his supporters. For about two hours, the singer, songwriter, entertainer who is running for governor of Texas keeps shaking hands and having his picture taken. He signs t-shirts, posters and his action figure. “I will sign whatever you want me to”, he tells the crowd. “Anything but bad laws”. Kinky Friedman, 61, knows the crowd will eat up his jokes. The cowboy who describes himself as “too young for Medicare but too old for women to care” has spent his life making people laugh. In the seventies, Kinky formed “Kinky and the Texas Jewboys”, a satirical band. Little Jewford, one of the band members, is still campaigning with him. Born in Chicago to Jewish parents, Mr Friedman always used his confession to crack jokes. At each campaign stop, people can buy one-dollar bumper stickers with his slogan: “My governor is a Jewish cowboy”. Mr Friedman’s real name is Richard. But during campaign he won the right to use “Kinky” as a trademark. A republican Representative recently described Kinky’s bid for governor as a protest vote. The candidate keeps playing that card. “I am the only one in this race with no political experience, he proudly tells a cheering crowd in Livingston. He also admits that he does not have solutions for all the problems and that he is not the best at balancing the books. But phe polls put him between 18% and 23%, in second or third place behind the republican incumbent Rick Perry. “The less Kinky knows about politics, the more I like I him”, says Bob Reed, a man from Livingston. Bob is fed us with the scandals involving State and federal politicians. He has got the tough face of the man who worked hard all of his life but who is now trying to survive more than he is able enjoy living. Bill Beletka’s swollen and pink hands tell a similar story. Mr Beltka speaks about the life he spent on oil rigs before ending up here in Livingston, an hour drive away from Huntsville and its seven penitentiaries. Bill Beletka, 45, hopes that his community will be able to find a way out of poverty “I won’t ask Kinky to solve a problem I can’t solve myself, he replies when asked about Mr Friedman’s vague answers about his program to fight poverty. “He seems to be closer to me than the others. Traditional politicians don’t give a (expletive) about us”. Mr Beletka clapped a lot while Kinky was speaking. He liked the quips of a candidate who was able to mix jokes with what one might call a “stump speech”: a couple ideas he throws around while chewing a cigar he never seems to be smoking. Mr Friedman wants to beef up security at the US-Mexican border but he rejects the wall the Bush administration is building. He often quotes his good friend Jesse Ventura, the former wrestler and governor of Minnesota, when talking about illegal immigration: “Jesse convinced me that building a fence was good idea, he tells the crowd at each campaign stop. One day, in 10 years, we might want to get out of here”. Kinky Friedman, who wrote about his past cocaine use, is all about quips. He has got nothing against George Bush, a “good guy stuck in a republican body”. Kinky only voted once in the last 15 years. It was in 2004 and he voted for George Bush, a man with whom he shares the same love for Texas. Do not try to classify Kinky’s ideas, you just can’t. He supports the decriminalization of marijuana. “It is stupid to screw a kid’s life just he smoked a joint”, he says. He supports prayers at school, he is against death penalty as long as the system has not been fixed - “I am not anti-death penalty, but I’m damn sure anti-the-wrong-guy-getting-executed” he once said -, and he supports gay marriage - “I believe they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us” he keeps repeating -. This proud cowboy supports abortion rights as well as the right to bear arms. Kinky Friedman made politics look simple: it is mainly about being a proud Texan. This message works with the white middle-class and the poor. African-American people remember Kinky’s jokes about “negroes” from his time as an entertainer, and do not identify with him. If he is elected on November 7, Mr Friedman’s first action will be to allow gambling in Texas and casinos in the Indian reserves. I will do it “by decree or something like that”, he claims. If he does not win, he plans to “get out of public life and go somewhere to raise goats”. Jean-Cosme Delaloye / Livingston Update April 26 2007: Kinky Friedman did not get elected. He finished fourth with 12,43% (546 869 votes). A shorter version in French of story was published in October 2006 in 24heures and Tribune de Genève in Switzerland. CommentsYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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