The Moose hopes for a day when Texas has a Governor who is a Jewish Cowboy.
The Moose is suffering from severe Lone Star State withdrawal. He longs for a bottle of Shiner and a sumptuous chicken fried steak. The only consolation is that he will return to Texas for the inauguration of Governor Kinky Friedman.
You may say that the Moose is a dreamer. But doubters beware - the Kinky phenomena is capturing the imagination of Texans. As the Moose said back last November, Kinky is far more accomplished than previous Texas governors. As the first Jewish Governor, Kinky has pledged to lower the speed limit from 65 miles an hour to 64.95. And he casts himself in the T.R. tradition - "I'm an Independent, which is the party of George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, Sam Houston, and Davy Crockett."
Now, the elites are beginning to take the Kinkster's candidacy seriously. The current issue of the New Yorker has a entertaining profile of Texas' next chief executive.
Dan Halpern writes,
"Kinky Friedman's candidacy is bound to be something; what that something is is still up for debate. He is surely the only candidate for governor to have written extensively about his past cocaine use, or to have flown in Led Zeppelin's private plane, or to have performed at the Grand Ole Opry. He is also currently the only candidate in the 2006 Texas gubernatorial campaign to operate outside the party system, without party money. Kinky, as everyone calls him, is running as an independent candidate. He'll need nearly fifty thousand signatures to get in the race, all of which must be collected in the two months following the party primaries, next March. (Given that thirty thousand volunteers have already signed up to help on the campaign, this looks probable.) For the time being, he intends to capitalize on voter dissatisfaction, and on whatever's left of the tradition of Texas populism."
The Friedman candidacy may very well be a harbinger of a coming political crack-up in American politics. There is increasing dissatisfaction with both parties. If the Democrats and Republicans cannot break the hold of their respective special interests and their ideological bases, a third force will undoubtedly emerge.
And if you think Kinky's candidacy is a joke, just consider the current occupant of the Texas Executive Mansion - Rick "Adios Mofo" Perry. Enough said. Compared to many of our contemporary politicians, Kinky is a paragon of statesmanship.
How do you explain the Moose's attraction to the Kinkster? From the New Yorker,
"Kinky, in his life and work, has always felt most comfortable as an outsider: a Jew in Texas, a Texan in New York, a reactionary in progressive circles, and a progressive in conservative circles. "Too smart for country, too country for the intelligentsia," as the journalist Larry Sloman -better known as Ratso, who in the mysteries plays Watson to Kinky's Sherlock- once put it."
Why not Kinky? -- | 
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