Kinky Closes The Distance

Kinky Friedman’s campaign to be the governor of Texas has become more than an amusing sidebar.

The former leader of Kinky Friedman & The Texas Jewboys and current Thurber Award finalist for American Humor is closing the distance between himself and the incumbent with good hair, Rick Perry. There is a five-way race between candidates going into the November 7th election, although Perry is expected to eclipse his competition, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Now that Friedman is seriously in the race, his past is under scrutiny. An audio recording of a 1980 nightclub act has surfaced, where Friedman uses epithets in reference to African-Americans, the Tribune said. Last year, he said in an interview that he would punish sexual predators this way: “Throw ’em in prison and throw away the key and make ’em listen to a Negro talking to himself.” He recently attributed Houston’s rising crime rate to the “crackheads and thugs” that arrived as evacuees of Hurricane Katrina.

“I’m not a racist, I’m a realist,” Friedman said at a campaign appearance, according to the Tribune. “It has nothing to do with race whatsoever. It has to do with recognizing a problem that everybody in Houston knows is here.”

His platform includes animal rights, gay marriage, legalizing pot, boosting teacher salaries and increasing alternative fuel consumption, the Tribune said. Likewise, he wants to put 10,000 National Guard troops on the Texas-Mexico border and is in favor of Texas’ death penalty policy, but with more safeguards.