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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.
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