Kinky may be about to flex some serious political muscle

from AAS:

threw his hat in the ring. I would vote for him. He would be a relief from what is there now.

who I think is probably going to be our nominee. But I'm following Kinky closely. I think he's going to have a good chance at it, honestly.

He will either divide the vote, taking supporters from both the D and R camps, and his influence will be a wash, or he will take it all and win. I'd like to see him win, though I don't live in TX. He would be the sanest governor they've had in awhile. And I must say, my favorite country tune is "Asshole from El Paso."

or even Sanchez his self, I'll damn sure consider voting for the Kinkster.

Like I said on another thread, I'm through dicking around with third party shit.

Democrats all the way.

But the reason I avoid 3rd parties like the plague typically is because they have no chance to win and thus merely serve as spoilers for Democrats.

Friedman may well have a chance to win. Given how weak the Dem party is in Texas, he may even have a better chance to win than the Democrat. Who is the spoiler for who then?

My main concern is breaking the GOP's stranglehold on power in Texas, and Friedman sounds like he is worth taking a look at.

--Peter

Goodhair vs. Bighair in the bruising primary. Hutchinson takes him down. Then we've got:

Kay Bailey
Kinky
and
Chris Bell

The first two have WAAAAY more statewide name recognition than Chris does. However, I just can't see that many R's crossing over to vote for Kinky. I don't see why people think he's that appealing to them. I think Kay Bailey's gonna win it.

Check back here in two years and see how I did with my prognostication, heh.

KBH may be unbeatable.. by anyone. Perry is a far different story.

--Peter

has no chance. I agree that Prick is unpopular, but he has way more money and is willing to smear her (and has the mud already in stock with which to do it) beyond recognition.

By the time the primary is over, Kay Bai will have collapsed in a puddle of tears, with makeup running like Tammy Faye's when PTL collapsed.

Part of me is actually looking forward to that.

to peel off enough votes from the GOP candidate -- regardless of who it happens to be, and who should be already mortally wounded from their primary -- to enable Chris Bell to be elected Governor.

See Kansas as a model for this strategy.

If we set the two halves of the Republicans against each other -- the Jesus freaks versus the country clubbers -- then we can cleave them in two.

And win.

Kinky may be running to make a point, but I think wants to win. And I don't see how Kinky is going to draw more votes from THEM than he is from US. Sure, maybe he'll get some of the good ol boy vote, but let's be honest: a Jewish former Peace Corps volunteer who is in a rock and roll band? I think a lot of Democrats will vote for him.

That gets Kay out of the Senate and hopefully ends her political career. And I think Perry is much more beatable in the GE than she is.

Second, we need to go all out for Bell or whoever our candidate is. I like Bell because he is GREAT on ethics and his a sort of Mr Smith goes to Washington charm. The DeLay/Craddick/Perry scandal will still be bubbling along and we need to make that a huge issue in 2006.

Finally, I see Kinky's demographic as being white males who think they are in control of their lives. And a lot more of them have been voting GOP than Dem lately.

because the primary is where the faithful show up, and the Texas GOP faithful is the freaks. They love Goodhair.

Perry's working hard right now to discourage KBH from challenging him because he knows if she does he'll be so weakened -- financially and otherwise -- it'll be curtains for him in the general. And if Kay don't run, Carole will, but Perry's not as scared of her. He oughta be, but he isn't. (Incidentally, this bruising smackdown, whoever the contestants happen to be, provides a great opoortunity for Dems to influence the outcome by crossing over in their primary).

Chris Bell is going to be saying "Tom DeLay" in every other sentence out of his month. As should every single Democratic candidate in the country.

Kinky needs to be a small little sideshow. He should just be distracting enough to suck off enough oxygen to sink Gov'na Goodhair.

You would think they would be more intelligent than that.

With the "he wants to win" part.

And it also needs to be the secondary mission of the Chris Bell campaign to repeatedly remind the electorate of the absurdity of a Friedman administration.

So that a lot of Democrats don't vote for him.

No matter how you shake it, though, the GOP stands to lose many more votes to the Kinkster than the Dems.

That the GOP stands to lose many more votes to Kinky? I don't see it. I think the fundies won't vote for him, the suburbanites won't vote for him. Ok, the redneck outlaw independent thinker types might very well vote for him, I'll give you that. He's got Twang Appeal. I'm just not sure how much of the GOP base constituency is suceptible to Twang Appeal?

Edited to add: I checked on population breakdown from the census website. 1990 total pop: 16 mil. 80% urban, 20% rural. Is the urban/suburban dwelling Texan really open to the idea of Kinky?

:shrug:

Kinda like Kalifornians with a "Terminator" complex? I really don't know either.

Because they have quite a few more voters than we do.



I agree...



I disagree. In fact I think they'll vote for him in droves. And suburbanites -- and exurbanites -- ain't Dems, mostly.



Oh, I think that amount could be safely estimated as a shitload. Without any empirical data to back up this contention, who's more likely to be a fan of Kinky's music and books? People who vote GOP or who vote Dem? Answer seems obvious (IMHO). And just so's you don't get me wrong, I have recently purchased David Allan Coe's music online, but I don't own anything of Kink's.

Really, and I don't mean to be flippant, crispi, but even as nothing more than a percentage of the respective blocs, Kinky stands to draw off more from them than from us. I think there's going to be kind of a Perot factor in play if Bell works it right (one of the differences being that Ross Perot isn't certifiable like Kinky).

Chris Bell needs to hammer two things: the hypocrisy and corruption of the GOP, and the ridiculousness of a Governor Kinky. There will also be a Jesse Ventura/Arnold Schwarzeneggar element in a three-way race. This could be formidable. And could result in ... *shudder*

There are more Repub voters than there are Dem voters -- granted. So statistically he's more likely to draw off more R voters -- also granted.

Here is my perception of the New Suburbanite Republican Texan, based on Collin county, which is, I believe, the fourth most Republican county in the nation. The New Suburbanite Texan:
- attends a megachurch
- works at a corporation
- lives in a suburb
- has most of their friends from the megachurch or the burb
- has kids, which take up a lot of their time.
- if female, has hobbies like quilting, throwing Pampered Chef parties, selling Tupperware, etc.
- reads bestsellers, if anything
- are wholesome and family oriented and quite possibly listen to James Dobson (I know several people like this)
- if they listen to country music, they listen to POPULAR country music as found on the radio today. Garth Brooks and whatnot. They don't listen to old school country music.

Kinky's books (of which I have read several, and they're pretty funny)
- feature a hard-drinking, cursing, smoking hero who lives in NYC in a renovated loft, downstairs from a lesbian dance studio.
- prominently feature irony, dark humor, frequently sexual or scatological,
- are set in bars, the seamier side of NYC, Chinatown, etc. Lots of local color.

Kinky's music - I'm not familiar with it that much, but his last DVD was: "Proud to Be An Asshole from El Paso," his band is called The Texas Jewboys, and some of his songs are titled things like, "They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore," "Ride 'Em Jewboy," and, "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed."

Anywho. I guess what I'm getting is that -- Kinky is kind of subversive and countercultural. Who does that appeal to? Mostly Democrats. :shrug: That's my take on it anyway. I think that the Republican base vote in Texas today is the New Suburbanite Republican, and not the shitkicker.

I could very well be wrong. Damn, I wish I could hire Zogby. :7

that would be the killer, sadly. :(

One of our wonderful, dear KPFT hosts here in Houston got a hate-call a coupla weeks ago for playing "They Don't Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore" on the air. Some lady told him it was irreverent. Wonder if she even knew Jesus WAS a Jew? These people do perplex me.

Our best hope for Kinky's dragging in suburban R votes seems to be that ome of these guys in their Hummers and whatnot DON'T want to kow-tow any to the Fristian Fundamentalist party line, as much as they've been programmed to hate us Dems.

And Crispini: you forgot the all-important female hobby of "Bunko." :P

It is possible to do all of the above OTHER things and still consider voting other than Republican. However, drag the megachurch into the equation and you've got a Repub, IMO. Hey, some of these folks are my coworkers -- they're decent coworkers, as long as you keep religion and politics out of the conversation.

LOL, Bunko. Too true.

If so, he'd better find a better platform than banning cat declawing.

I heard his interview with Al Franken about a month ago. He claimed that as his platform. The more he went on about the subject and the more passionate he became, the only thing I could think was, "Is he kidding me with this?"

Forget about all the shit we get hit with on DU because we're from Texas and we elect the most outrageously non-qualified people to office, who make it their life's goal to make Texas look like just what we get blamed as being.

Texas can't stand the Jesse Ventura/Arnold Schwarzeneggar lens focused on us, too. Frankly, most people don't even know Perry's name. * and Hammer and all the wild stories that hit the news is problem enough.

I'm a personnel recruiter and if you think what we get on DU is bad, you should try to recruit highly educated professionals to come down here. It's the schools, it's the crazies in the news, it's the tax base and don't tell me we don't have a state income tax. Our property taxes are way higher the California and probably most other states as well. Then everyday, these people are hearing on the news about the kind of people we elect and they don't want to live next door to the Texas electorate and not many of these people are liberals.

I hear these things day in and day out and personally, I'm not looking forward to the word getting around that now we're sending out a great big ol' yee haw for Kinky, cause he's "evidently" some cool dude.

Frankly, I find the whole idea of him even being a serious candidate to any registered, non-certifiable nut, damn depressing.

Then I look at someone as honorable as Chris Bell, whose willing to put himself out there, at this particular time in his and Alison's life, because we asked them and I wonder how you can't be so proud of them you want to burst. Then I look see people here who say "I'd vote for Kinky" or that the whole idea of him on the ballot in Texas is in anyway a plus, and I look at THIS!!!

knowing I'm going to be fielding e-mails and phone calls with people who laugh when I suggest they might want to bring their children and relocate to Texas. What do I say? It's all just in fun? We can't blame any of this on the wingnuts who fielded * and the roach, though I'm sure they're enjoying the hell out of it.

Mary