A bit late for “Frivolous Friday,” but:
A former senator who engineered Jesse Ventura’s surprise election as Minnesota governor is joining author Kinky Friedman’s independent bid for governor of Texas.
Former Sen. Dean Barkley, who has recently been a consultant and lobbyist, will serve as campaign director and chief strategist, Friedman announced Friday.
Barkley founded Minnesota’s Independence Party and in 1997 recruited Ventura, a former pro wrestler and actor, to run the following year. As governor, Ventura appointed Barkley to fill the vacancy left when Sen. Paul D. Wellstone died in a plane crash in 2002.
More.
As many of you know, the Texas Governorship is one of the nation’s weakest. There’s little to do beyond letting your political consultants wreak devastation over at the Legislature and mocking death row inmates.
Oh, and plot a future run for the White House.
Into this explosive situation steps Kinky Friedman, ex-leader of the “Texas Jewboys” and lately, an author. As the article points out, turnout in the last gubernatorial election was 29.3 percent, which leaves a lot of room for a charismatic outsider run a la Ventura.
And after that, who knows?
Friedman gets the implications, too:
Friedman — whose books include “Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned” and “Kinky Friedman’s Guide to Texas Etiquette” — said his candidacy should be taken seriously.
“What better place for an independent to win than Texas?” he said. “And if it can be done, I think every career politician in the country is going to feel a little shiver up his spine.”
Conspiracy theorists, represent! How can we sustain Kinky’s political career from there?