The viral campaign against Kinky Friedman
Some time ago I withdrew my support of Kinky Friedman's independent campaign for governor of Texas for the simple reason that his jokes were getting stale.
Still, the other day, I posted a picture of Friedman on Banjo Pics, our photoblog, that was taken during a recent stop Friedman made at a local Houston watering hole.
Today, we received a long comment on the photoblog post that was complete with hyperlinks and not-so-subtle comments about Friedman's lack of appeal among minority voters.
This surprised me, mainly because no one hardly ever leaves comments on our photoblog, which receives little traffic compared with our main site, The Brazosport News.
If I didn't know any better, and I don't, I'd say there's an organized campaign against Friedman in Bloggerville being waged by one of the two major political parties.
Click here to read the comment.
What do you think?
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8 comments:
Ni Hao! Kannichi Wa.
This sounds like a demo-cat neo-lib response.
The appealing thing about Kinky is that his positions are based on common sense, a characteristic that is alien to both demo-cat neolibs and republi-con neocons.
It's easy to see why he might be unpopular with special interests and minority groups since he doesn't promise (e.g. lie) to any one more than the other.
MOTYR
I'm not sure if there is an organized campaign against Kinky, but I have recently become opposed to Kinky. I was on the fence for a while, but I’m no longer considering Kinky as an option.
My problem with Kinky is basically this: we have the worst governor in history, and we have three opponents to the governor who are dividing the anti-incumbent vote in a manner that virtually guarantees the governor's re-election, and so anyone disinterested in re-electing the governor must seriously consider the three alternatives.
You have Strayhorn. She's a Republican, but not as Christofascist, mean-spirited, or corporatist as Perry, and she’s raised a ton of money.
You have Bell. He's a Democrat and has the institutional support of the Democratic Party, but he’s neither terrible charismatic nor very well funded, but generally he’s moderate on the issues and not as mean-spirited as Perry.
Then you have Kinky. He talks one way, but acts another (he makes pro gay marriage jokes but then doesn't bother to vote when the gay marriage amendment is on the Texas ballot; he says he's not anti-death penalty but then he testifies at Max Soffar's trial that he's against the death penalty and tells the anti-death penalty crowd he'll impose a moratorium on capital punishment; he says he voted for Gore in 2000 but his voting records confirm he didn't vote at all from 1994 to 2004; he tells an anti-Bush crowd that Bush isn't too smart and he's messed up but he tells a pro-Bush crowd that Bush is an honorable cowboy who did a good job in the Middle East and that's why Kinky voted for Bush in 2004). Ideologically, Kinky's plans run form the farthest right-wing nonsense (his anti-immigration blather about 5 Mexican generals) to bed-wetting liberal pablum (his plan to outlaw the declawing of cats) to almost every half-assed idea in between. Plus, one cannot escape the conclusion that while Kinky stands no chance of getting elected he is succeeding wildly at reviving his music and book sales with his campaign.
One of the three anti-incumbent candidates has got to go because the anti-incumbent vote is very strong but it cannot stand to be split three ways. Of the three candidates, Kinky is the one who is ideologically incoherent, Kinky is the one who is running as a self-promotional joke, and Kinky is the longest of the longshots because he lacks Bell's organized party support and Strayhorn's money. Kinky is funny, but Texas is in bad shape and the broken future Texas we are leaving our children isn’t a laughing matter. It’s time to cull the heard. Kinky, we love you, but you have to go because we can't afford three anti-incumbent candidates. And please endorse either Bell or Strayhorn on your way out.
Hello friend, and from what I gather, former Kinky supporter. Based on your reasoning for no longer supporting Kinky, does that mean that if he gets new, fresh jokes, you'll reconsider supporting him. Just a thought. But what I really wanted to address was the the long post on your photoblog. It is from StopKinky.blogspot. This guy goes around and copy and pastes the exact same thing on anything having to do with Kinky Friedman. I am in the process of a rebuttal campaign, and hope to release it soon when I get a little more time. Have a great day partner. I'm not worried about losing your Kinky support because you have already seen the light, and it is bright.
That does read too much like insider-baseball opposition research.
But from whom?
Did Dave Carney get bored one night and decide to have a little fun?
Is Jason Stanford so enamored of the netroots that he really believes crap like that matters?
Are Carole's people just plain inept that way?
What an interesting little mystery!
Yeah, I don't like some, maybe even most, of Kinky's stances. But I'm voting for him anyhow. Just to piss off my "conservative" friends.
It should surprise no one that both Democrats and Republicans have strategies with which to take votes from any independent candidate.
Good for you, Banjo.
Kinky's a Republican, you know, and there's already two of those running for governor.
I took a picture of a Kinky-mobile near the Last Concert Cafe in April. All I did was post that picture on my site and I got the same kind of comment.
This is probably a semi-organized recognition by Democrats that most Kinky votes will be coming from Austin and Montrose and other scattered outposts of white liberal Democrats, meaning their guy is in line for 24 percent rather than the 32 percent he'd claim w/o Kinky, the Dem nominee being a nice guy but way too weak to transcend the limitations of his party. But in itslef its indicative of where the Demo Party is at: how many African Americans are/were gonna vote for K. anyway (some Hispanics will, tho).
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