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StumbleUponThe governor says knock it off!" It is a noisy morning at Kinky Friedman's ranch outside Austin. His five mutts, the Friedmans, are roughhousing something fierce, and a scruffy guest from New York named Ratso is loudly lamenting the state of Texas bagels. Friedman, puffing on a Kinkycristo cigar—his latest business venture—is boasting that he won $36,000 in Las Vegas over the weekend. "And I was down $200,000 at one point." But no one can hear him.
"That's it!" he barks. "The governor says the Friedmans are going outside!"
No, he's not the governor of Texas. He just likes the way it sounds. What he is: a singer, author, businessman, troublemaker—everything but governor. But it's not for lack of trying.
His political journey began when he ran as an independent in the 2006 Texas gubernatorial race. His rite of passage: a speech, early on in the campaign, before the Galveston Island Pachyderm Club, a genteel collection of Republican loyalists. The self-described compassionate redneck, who coined the phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder" and penned the country-western ballad "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed" for his band, the Texas Jewboys, was clearly not in his element. Thus far, his campaign had taken him to Texas roadhouses, where his unique brand of antigovernment grousing had ignited audiences. He had proven to be a man of the people—but mostly inebriated people.
Clutching a smoldering Cuban cigar, Friedman squinted into a well-heeled crowd that was as straight as a Texas interstate. He began by talking about low voter turnout and how the system was gamed against independents and freethinkers. The audience was intrigued. When Friedman complained about the pathetic state of education in Texas, heads started nodding. Then he went for broke by announcing his immigration scheme, the Five Mexican Generals Plan. Mexican officers, he explained, would be given a jurisdiction and reimbursed $5,000 for each illegal border-crosser they caught. He was serious. So was the audience, who cheered.
From that moment on, Friedman had them. They cracked up when he declared, "As the first Jewish governor, I'll reduce the speed limit to 54.95!" They even laughed with approval at his liberal views on gay marriage: "They have the right to be just as miserable as the rest of us." He slayed them with his campaign slogan, "I can't screw it up any worse than it already is!"
Soon his following grew, and Friedman was working tirelessly, declaring, "I'll sleep when I'm governor!" He developed his platform goal, the "dewussification of Texas." He defined his plan to rehabilitate public education, "No Teacher Left Behind," and worked out the finer points of the Five Mexican Generals, raising the bounty to $10,000.
Beneath the humor beat the heart of a rebel. He insisted on opposing capital punishment, not exactly a popular position in Texas. "You can't leave decisions about someone's life to people who can't run the post office," he explained.
Of course, it all went for naught—he ended up with only 12 percent of the vote. "God himself wouldn't win as an independent in Texas," he says.
Politics hasn't always been in Richard Friedman's blood, but Texas has. He grew up in socially conservative Medina, working at his parents' summer camp.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, where he acquired his nickname (for his hair), it was off to the Peace Corps. "I served in Borneo, teaching agricultural techniques to people who have successfully farmed for thousands of years," he recalls.
But his inner political incorrectness beckoned. Back in Texas, he and the Texas Jewboys attracted a following with songs like "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore," a humorous screed against bigotry, and toured with the likes of Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson.
In the 1980s he switched gears, reinventing himself as a mystery writer. His 17 detective novels star a private investigator named Kinky Friedman, with titles like The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover. Imagine Raymond Chandler meets Henny Youngman … and they get drunk together. He's currently busy with his Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch and his Kinky Friedman Cigars. ("Next year we're coming out with a cigar that enhances the flavor of tequila!" he says.)
But politics is what consumes him, especially the Presidential election, which he sees with more than a little optimism. A friend to both John McCain and the Clintons, he says of the potential nominees, "As much as I rail against the bipolar two-party system, I have no problem if it produces a John versus Hillary/Obama option."
And he can't take his eyes off the 2010 Texas gubernatorial election. "I'll pick up a million votes if I run as a Democrat next time," he says. And he has no plans to change his rambunctious style for the next election.
"You don't accomplish much by swimming with the mainstream," Friedman says. "Hell, a dead fish can do that."
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