According to Dr. Rausch, “(t)he site will have a series of exit poll links with different surveys for Randall and Potter counties, Amarillo, Canyon and for people outside of Randall and Potter counties. The surveys will include questions about property tax freeze initiatives and the changes to the Amarillo City Commissionas well as questions about the Texas gubernatorial elections.”
The links have been active since early voting started on October 23. I urge all across Texas to go here and take the exit poll. Let’s help Dr. Rausch see how well they work and how accurate they are. Make sure, though, if you are in Potter or Randall Counties, that you take the polls specific to your region.
(And this just breaking, the Halloween Peeps have withdrawn their endorsement! - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
AUSTIN – Supporters of entertainer turned politician Kinky Friedman expressed shock and disappointment Tuesday night after they spent a fruitless evening in pumpkin patches from El Paso to Texarkana.
“I was sure that the Great Pumpkin would rise over the pumpkin patch and give us candy,” one Friedman supporter said. “We spent hours trolling internet message boards and voting for the Great Pumpkin multiple times in unscientific on-line polls,” he explained, “I can’t believe the Great Pumpkin didn’t rise.”
When asked whether the campaign focused on registering new voters for the Great Pumpkin, Laura Stromberg said, “no, but have you seen how many out-of-state MySpace and Facebook accounts we have generated among 14 to 17 year olds?”
While supporters of Kinky Friedman are universally disappointed in the failure of the Great Pumpkin to rise this Halloween, they remain confident that Friedman will prevail on November 7. When asked to comment, one Friedman supporter summed up the crowd’s sentiments. “We’re totally not throwing our vote away on a fictional candidate or a novelty campaign,” he said, adding “Dude, can I share some of your Halloween candy?”
This poll was taken Monday night of a random sample of 230 UT students, unweighted. It has a 5.4% MoE @ 90% confidence.
46.5% Bell (D)
18.3% Friedman (I)
16.5% Perry (R)
10.0% Strayhorn (I)
04.3% Werner (L)
04.0% Undecided
If the heart of the supposed hotbed of Kinky Friedman support has this pathetic of a showing, what more evidence do people need to show that Chris Bell is the only viable candidate to beat Rick Perry?
Turnout at the on campus UT early voting site hit a high today of 626 votes even as the county remained static from yesterday. Looks like my autocall to students yesterday and other GOTV phone calls are making an impact.
I am a lifelong Democrat who used to be excited about Kinky Friedman. He seemed intelligent and charismatic. I agreed with many of his written positions. I saw a vote for Kinky as a symbolic finger-lifting gesture to the establishment. Let’s stick it to the man. But after meeting him in person and seeing the candidates debate, there is something hinky about Kinky that has changed my mind.
Politics is about people. A good governor has to be able to work with peers and manage subordinates to have any hope of keeping campaign goals and promises. These people skills are especially important for an “independent” governor who cannot use the stick of party discipline when carrots fail. Such a governor has to be an exceptional communicator and committed to reaching out. Kinky is not.
Kinky is about himself. When I met him in person, it was by happenstance in the Lubbock airport. He was with one other fellow, waiting for a plane. I introduced my family. He did not introduce his companion. We chatted. But it was weirdly like a private stand-up performance. He was cute. He was funny. But he was performing, not relating. He was acting; it was surreal. I just put it down to a long day of campaigning.
The gubanatorial debate solidified my doubts. Kinky defended his careless comments about Katrina evacuees by basically saying that “words don’t matter” and that he was just being “realistic.” What bull. Kinky’s whole career—as a songwriter and jokester—is about words. He knows better than most of us how much words matter. But they matter in a different way to a performer than to a governor. Performers entertain, governors explain. Performers enrage, leaders engage. Performers joke, politicians stroke. Especially in Texas, where the governor has far less actual power than in other states, words matter. Words that are “realistic” to one group may be fighting words to another. A governor has to deal with that. While the Kinkster uses words really well as a performer, he does not seem to understand how to use words as a leader or collaborator.
Worse, Kinky does not even respect those who support him. He showed this during the debate when he called his campaign staff a “small, young, rather irritable group of people.” He said “several” African Americans were in this small group, but when asked to name one, he fumbled, finally fishing out a single first name. He could not even come up with a full name. Even a protest leader must be a leader. What kind of protest is it to vote for a fellow who does not even care enough to know the names of his most dedicated supporters and publically disparages them as “irritable”? I do not want to vote for someone so arrogantly into himself.
Kinky’s remarks reveal what is hinky: he does not care. He does not care about people, about reaching out, about the issues, about his own supporters, or even about sticking it to anyone. It’s all about him. It’s fodder for future routines. He’ll probably write a book and a couple of songs.
If I am wrong and Kinky is serious about winning, then I seriously question whether he has the people skills to govern. But if I am right and Kinky is just larking around, then a vote for him is meaningless. It’s not a protest vote. It’s an ego-stroke. Either way, while I do not mind casting a protest vote for a losing candidate, I refuse to cast one for a loser.
(Timothy and I have had a lot of interesting conversations, among them being the Governor's race. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
I’ve been meaning to post something about how I voted, and the specifics of my choice in the governor’s race. I ended up voting straight Democratic unless their wasn’t a Democrat, in which case I voted for the Libertarian (kudos to the Libertarians for running someone in every race.)
Up until a month ago I was a Kinky supporter. The reason I supported Kinky was because he is down to earth and honest and is very good on most of the issues. I liked him, and like most other Kinky supporters, without really taking the time to look into Chris Bell. After considering the merits of both candidates and especially their stances on the issues, I decided that Chris Bell has most of the merits of Kinky Friedman with few of his faults.
Rasmussen's new poll (10/23) confirms what the SurveyUSA, Wall Street Journal, and Texans for Insurance Reform polls show: Bell is the only candidate who has any chance of catching vulnerable Perry:
36% - Rick Perry
25% - Chris Bell
22% - Carole Strayhorn
12% - Richard Friedman
For reference, here's the SurveyUSA poll (10/24):
36% - Rick Perry
26% - Chris Bell
19% - Carole Strayhorn
16% - Richard Friedman
Wall Street Journal (10/19):
37.5% - Rick Perry
26.2% - Chris Bell
13.2% - Richard Friedman
13.0% - Carole Strayhorn
Texans for Insurance Reform (10/15):
34.4% - Rick Perry
18.7% - Chris Bell
18.5% - Carole Strayhorn
_8.6% - Richard Friedman
Just as early voting begins, the new SurveyUSA poll is coming out, and it confirms the two other post-debate polls: Chris Bell is the only candidate to emerge from the pack of challengers to have any chance of beating Perry.
36% - Rick Perry
26% - Chris Bell
19% - Carole Strayhorn
16% - Richard Friedman
Chris Bell is also the only candidate with consistent upward momentum (Strayhorn and Perry wobble up and down and Kinky has a consistent downward trajectory).
As you probably know, I already can't stand Kinky Friedman. But add his vote yesterday as the final straw.
Kinky Friedman went home to Kerr County to vote (the place where he once ran and lost as a Republican for Justice of the Peace). Whlie there, he said...
“It was a time for change,” he said, as he exited the courthouse. “I’m very excited.”
But then did the following.
Friedman said he cast ballots for Congressman Lamar Smith and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom he said he met Sunday at a Dallas airport.
You just don't get it do you. I hope your supporters are smart enough to vote for people like John Courage down the ballot unlike you Kinky Friedman.
Change, my ass. Get out there and cancel Kinky's vote ye residents of TX-21.
I voted this morning in the Flawn Academic Center just before class.
I didn't cast a straight Democratic ticket (as usual) since there are plenty of fine Libertarian candidates for me to waste a vote on instead of Republicans. People like Libertarian Martin Thomen running for State Board of Education District 10. (You should vote for him too since there is no Democrat on the line). Hell, I even wrote in Charles E. Waterbury for Chief Justice, the only other write-in besides James "Patriot" Dillon running for Governor. And I voted YES to all 7 Travis County Bonds.
I'm an odd voter, but I take every election seriously and vote in every race.
In the only two polls conducted after the gubernatorial candidates' debate, Bell is in second place emerging as the only challenger who has a chance of beating Perry. Both polls confirm that Kinky is nothing but a spoiler bottoming out in the polls more than 10% below Bell.
Wall Street Journal (an internet based poll using a methodology that may oversample pro-technology voters, but the poll is weighted to match the race, age, economic profile, education profile, and party affiliation splits corresponding with the splits from the latest exit polls from comparable elections in Texas):
37.5% - Rick Perry
26.2% - Chris Bell
13.2% - Richard Friedman
13.0% - Carole Strayhorn
Texans for Insurance Reform (a land-line telephone based poll using a methodology that may undersample younger, pro-technology, economically disadvantaged voters, and the poll is weighted to match the polling population to the assumption that 40% of the voters will be Republicans, 30% will be Democrats, and 30% will be independents - this poll is conducted by an independent polling firm but it is financed by Strayhorn supporters):
34.4% - Rick Perry
18.7% - Chris Bell
18.5% - Carole Strayhorn
_8.6% - Richard Friedman
