One of the many bumper stickers you see around here for Kinky Friedman boldly (or baldly) states "Why the hell not?" I think even the most intractable cynics are starting to figure out why the hell not and why some things that seemed like world-shatteringly wonderful ideas are best forgotten when you wake up the next day.

The whole point of Friedman's candidacy was that Texas politics is no longer representative of real Texans (like it ever was) and anyone could do the job of Governor better than Rick Perry. Trouble is, Friedman has revealed himself to be one of the few people who really would be worse than Perry. When he could get away with a few old jokes and some gnomic "I'll fix this 'n' fix that" asides his campaign was acceptable as time filler on local news. But now he's having to say what his platform is and it's a crock of half-assed right-wing libertarian spume, what was wacky, "shucks, only in Texas" braggadocio is a total embarrassment. And that's without getting into his entrenched "I'm not a bigotry I just play one in real life" racism. I trust that all those easily gulled Democrats who though they were too cool and rockin' to own up to having nice-but-dull Chris Bell as their man and instead plastered a bunch of ker-razy Kinky Friedman stickers on their cars are breaking fingernails peeling them off round about now.

There's another kooky candidate, however, in case you're sad about losing Kinky as comic relief: James "Patriot" Dillon....