Posts Tagged ‘Kinky Friedman’

LinkSwarm for July 13, 2018

Friday, July 13th, 2018

Happy Friday the 13th! FBI “Partisan Weasel” Peter Strzok smirked and slithered his way through his capitol hill testimony. “That Strzok could huddle with FBI lawyers while stonewalling a Republican-led committee speaks to the corruption of official Washington and the comparative impotence of Republican administrations. Does anybody think an FBI agent who had vowed to “stop” the candidacy of Barack Obama would have lasted a week at his job, let alone over a year, after the discovery of his bias?”

And when I say slithered:

Now enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:

  • The U.S. Army has announced that Austin will be home to its new Futures Command. “The Futures Command center will focus on modernizing the U.S. Army and developing new military technologies. It is expected to employ up to 500 people.” Cool. My only question is: How do I get a job there?
  • “MSNBC Does Not Merely Permit Fabrications Against Democratic Party Critics. It Encourages and Rewards Them.” Also: “Anyone who criticizes the Democratic Party or its leaders is instantly accused of being a Kremlin agent despite the lack of any evidence. And the organization that leads that smear campaign is the one that calls itself a news outlet.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Three Democrats: “Here’s a bill to abolish ICE.” House Republican leadership: “OK, let’s put it to a vote.” Three Democrats: “Never mind, we’ll vote against it.” Hypocrite much?
  • “Fierce Gun Battle Erupts Between Mexican Troops And Cartel Gunmen Near Texas Border.”
  • President Trump on NATO: “Europe needs to pay it’s fair share for defense.” Eurocrats: “We have no idea what he’s saying! Stop speaking in code!”
  • Remember how socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated incumbent Joe Crowley in the 14th Congressional District Democratic primary? Surprise! Crowley is still on the ballot on the Working Families Party line. Read on for New York’s goofy third party rules (goofier than most). (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty.)
  • Problem: Residents of New Jersey are moving to Florida to escape high taxes. New Jersey’s solution: raise them even higher.
  • Saudi Arabia’s ruling class is falling in line with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reforms. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Social Justice Warrior game developer goes all Social Justice Warrior on gaming company partner on company time. Pink slip ensues.
  • Stop fixating on the Russia-hacked-the-election fantasy, says his Russian political foes:

    “Enough already!” Leonid M. Volkov, chief of staff for the anti-corruption campaigner and opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, wrote in a recent anguished post on Facebook. “What is happening with ‘the investigation into Russian interference,’ is not just a disgrace but a collective eclipse of the mind.”

    What most disturbs Mr. Putin’s critics about what they see as America’s Russia fever is that it reinforces a narrative put forth tirelessly by the state-controlled Russian news media. On television, in newspapers and on websites, Mr. Putin is portrayed as an ever-victorious master strategist who has led Russia — an economic, military and demographic weakling compared with the United States — from triumph to triumph on the world stage.

    “The Kremlin is of course very proud of this whole Russian interference story. It shows they are not just a group of old K.G.B. guys with no understanding of digital but an almighty force from a James Bond saga,” Mr. Volkov said in a telephone interview. “This image is very bad for us. Putin is not a master geopolitical genius.”

  • The citizens of European nations balk at erasing borders.

    The European Union has always been sold, to its citizens, on a practical basis: Cheaper products. Easier travel. Prosperity and security.

    But its founding leaders had something larger in mind. They conceived it as a radical experiment to transcend the nation-state, whose core ideas of race-based identity and zero-sum competition had brought disaster twice in the space of a generation.

    France’s foreign minister, announcing the bloc’s precursor in 1949, called it “a great experiment” that would put “an end to war” and guarantee “an eternal peace.”

    Norway’s foreign minister, Halvard M. Lange, compared Europe at that moment to the early American colonies: separate blocs that, in time, would cast off their autonomy and identities to form a unified nation. Much as Virginians and Pennsylvanians had become Americans, Germans and Frenchmen would become Europeans — if they could be persuaded.

    “The keen feeling of national identity must be considered a real barrier to European integration,” Mr. Lange wrote in an essay that became a foundational European Union text.

    But instead of overcoming that barrier, European leaders pretended it didn’t exist. More damning, they entirely avoided mentioning what Europeans would need to give up: a degree of their deeply felt national identities and hard-won national sovereignty.

    Now, as Europeans struggle with the social and political strains set off by migration from poor and war-torn nations outside the bloc, some are clamoring to preserve what they feel they never consented to surrender. Their fight with European leaders is exploding over an issue that, perhaps more than any other, exposes the contradiction between the dream of the European Union and the reality of European nations: borders.

    Establishment European leaders insist on open borders within the bloc. Free movement is meant to transcend cultural barriers, integrate economies and lubricate the single market. But a growing number of European voters want to sharply limit the arrival of refugees in their countries, which would require closing the borders.

    This might seem like a straightforward matter of reconciling internal rules with public demand on the relatively narrow issue of refugees, who are no longer even arriving in great numbers.

    But there is a reason that it has brought Europe to the brink, with its most important leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, warning of disaster and at risk of losing power. The borders question is really a question of whether Europe can move past traditional notions of the nation-state. And that is a question that Europeans have avoided confronting, much less answering, for over half a century.

    Snip.

    Perhaps the drive to restore European borders is, on some level, about borders themselves. Maybe when populists talk about restoring sovereignty and national identity, it’s not just a euphemism for anti-refugee sentiment (although such sentiment is indeed rife). Maybe they mean it.

    Traveling Germany with a colleague to report on the populist wave sweeping Europe, we heard the same concerns over and over. Vanishing borders. Lost identity. A distrusted establishment. Sovereignty surrendered to the European Union. Too many migrants.

    Populist supporters would often bring up refugees as a focal point and physical manifestation of larger, more abstract fears. They would often say, as one woman told me outside a rally for the Alternative for Germany, a rising populist party, that they feared their national identity was being erased.

    “Germany needs a positive relationship with our identity,” Björn Höcke, a leading far-right figure in the party, told my colleague. “The foundation of our unity is identity.”

    Allowing in refugees, even in very large numbers, does not mean Germany will no longer be Germany, of course. But this slight cultural change is one component of a larger European project that has required giving up, even if only by degrees, core conceits of a fully sovereign nation-state.

    National policy is suborned, on some issues, to the vetoes and powers of the larger union.

    Snip.

    European leaders hoped they could rein in those impulses long enough to transform Europe from the top down, but the financial crisis of 2008 came when their project was only half completed. That led to the crisis in the euro, which revealed political fault lines the leadership had long denied or wished away.

    The financial crisis and an accompanying outburst in Islamic terrorism also provided a threat. When people feel under threat, research shows, they seek a strong identity that will make them feel part of a powerful group.

    For that, many Europeans turned to their national identity: British, French, German. But the more people embraced their national identities, the more they came to oppose the European Union, studies found — and the more they came to distrust anyone within their borders who they saw as an outsider.

    European leaders, unable to square their project’s ambition of transcending nationalism with this reality of rising nationalism, have tried to have it both ways. Ms. Merkel has sought to save Europe’s border-free zone by imposing one hard border.

    Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian chancellor, has called for ever-harder “external” borders, which refers to those separating the European Union from the outside world, in order to keep internal borders open.

    This might work if refugee arrivals were the root issue. But it would not resolve the contradiction between the European Union as an experiment in overcoming nationalism versus the politics of the moment, in which publics are demanding more nationalism.

    That resurgence starts with borders. But Hungary’s trajectory suggests it might not end there. The country’s nationalist government, after erecting fences and setting up refugee camps, has seen hardening xenophobia and rising support for tilting toward authoritarianism.

    As the euro crisis showed, even pro-union leaders could never bring themselves to fully abandon the old nationalism. They are elected by their fellow nationals, after all, so naturally put them first. Their first loyalty is to their country. When that comes into conflict with the rest of the union, as it has on the issue of refugees, it’s little wonder that national self-interest wins.

  • The Air Force is rigging a test for the F-35 and against the A-10. Jerry Pournelle said the Air Force would always kill a hundred A-10s to buy one more F-35… (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • Why did President Trump nominate, and Texas Senator John Cornyn vote to confirm, a circuit court judge who opposed Heller?
  • President Trump pardons Oregon ranchers at the heart of the Bundy protests. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Parkland shooting survivors sue Scott Israel and the Broward County Sheriff’s Department. (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
  • Democratic Rep: Data is racist.
  • “Shocking Video Shows Abortion Clinic Staff Playing With Aborted Babies Like Dolls.”
  • Oopsie! (Hat tip: Mike.)
  • Feminist Apparel’s male CEO fires entire staff after they confront him over his history of sexual abuse. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Good news! Kinky Friedman has a new album out. Interesting news:

    Looking back through history, I can only think of two figures that have been mocked more than Trump, and they are Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ. So I say, give him a chance. How about a reality president for a reality world? Of course, this doesn’t sit well with people in New York I’m working with on projects, but, y’know, I would just withhold judgment on Trump. And it looks to me like he’s getting things done, and some of ‘em are pretty good things. And the last guy was a f*ckin’ Forrest Gump.

    Trump has already done one thing that the previous three Presidents looked in our eyes and told us they were gonna do — and they knew the whole time they were never gonna do – which is move that embassy. He did it. Every expert told him that would result in the apocalypse coming…he did that. And that’s a big thing to do. And he’s done other big things. Pulling out of the Iran deal took Pawn Shop-sized balls when everybody else was telling him what a horrible mistake that was. And…we’ll see. He may be the guy who does get Kim to come along with him, that very well might happen. I follow what Billy Joe Shaver says, which is, Remember that Jesus rode in on a jackass.

    No wonder Democrats never embraced him. Too much of a free-thinker… (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Lifestyles of the rich and felonious.
  • Size dysfunction among the London left:

  • Bye bye bag bans.
  • NFL owner sells team, but requires new owner to keep giant statue of him outside the stadium as a condition of sale.
  • William Shatner vs. the Social Justice Warriors.
  • “Thirteens my lucky number…” If you suffer from triskaidekaphobia, try to enjoy Social Distortion’s “Bad Luck.”
  • Patrick, Paxton, Sitton Win, Miller Leading

    Tuesday, May 27th, 2014

    According to the latest results.

    Both Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton were hovering around 64-65% of the vote, which is pretty decisive.

    Ryan Sitton is currently winning with 58% to Wayne Christian’s 42% for Railroad Commissioner. That’s a mild surprise to me, but down ballot races are harder to predict, and I did notice a late direct mail push from Sitton.

    Sid Miller is currently leading Tommy Merritt 54-46% for Agriculture Commissioner, but they haven’t called the race yet.

    On the Democrat’s side, David Alameel beat Larouchite Keisha Rogers fairly handily, 72% to 28%, for the chance to be slaughtered by John Cornyn in the Senate race. And Kinky Friedman appears to have lost to non-campaigning candidate Jim Hogan 55%-45% for Agriculture Commissioner. As to why, maybe Texas Democrats hate one or more of: Marijuana, Jews, country music singers, mystery writers, guys who smoke cigars, or guys named Kinky. Or they still hate him for running as an independent in 2006. Or they like guys with nice Anglo names. Take your pick.

    More tomorrow (maybe).

    Final Statewide Race Runoff Update

    Monday, May 26th, 2014

    Tomorrow is the Texas primary runoff, so now would be a good time to find your voting card and confirm your polling place.

    A final roundup of runoff tidbits:

  • The Dallas Morning News says that Dan Patrick is poised to win due to his staunch opposition to illegal immigration. Oversimplified, but not entirely wrong. They also say Patrick has done a good job connecting with Ted Cruz supporters.
  • The end for Dewhurst draws nigh.
  • Dan Branch would have raised more money for the Attorney General race than Ken Paxton…were it not for the $1 million loan from Midland oilman Tim Dunn via Empower Texans PAC. Now you see why so many liberal reporters call Michael Quinn Sullivan the most powerful figure in Texas politics.
  • Talk show host Dana Loesch endorses Paxton. Less a move-the-needle endorsement than a reminder that conservatives are united on Paxton’s side.
  • Hey, that union Branch lobbied for totally wasn’t a member of the AFL-CIO…at least when he lobbied for it.
  • Governor Rick Perry took the unusual step of endorsing Sid Miller for Agriculture Commissioner over Tommy Merritt.
  • Some controversy over Miller’s campaign loan repayments.
  • On the Democrat side of the Ag Commissioner runoff, Kinky Friedman is running against an invisible opponent. “In the May 27 runoff the choice for the party’s faithful is either Friedman or Jim Hogan, a former dairy farmer who hasn’t campaigned for the office or even has a campaign website…Hogan could not be reached for comment because a phone number listed under his name was out of service and the Democratic Party of Texas did not respond to a request for other contact information.” Also, win or lose, Kinky said this is his last race.
  • Hogan seems to be taking a very Zen approach to campaigning.
  • One website has tried to fill the Jim Hogan void.
  • Here’s a Texas Tribune piece on the runoff between rich guy David Alameel and Larouchite Kesha Rogers for the Democratic Senate nomination. Fun as it would be to see Rogers upset Alameel, I don’t see it in the cards.
  • Finally, just in case you were unclear, Texas Monthly‘s Paul Burka is very upset that Republican primary voters continue to prefer actual Republicans over Republicans who act like Democrats once in office.
  • Here is who I will be voting for tomorrow (all of whom I expect to win):

  • Dan Patrick for Lt. Governor
  • Ken Paxton for Attorney General
  • Sid Miller for Agriculture Commissioner
  • Wayne Christian for Railroad Commissioner
  • Texas Statewide Race Updates for April 4, 2014

    Friday, April 4th, 2014

    My taxes and family health issues have curtailed blogging somewhat, so here are some statewide race updates, some of which stretch back to just after the primary:

  • The Weekly Standard covers the Abbott campaign.

    One Abbott supporter in Edinburg, former state representative Aaron Peña, is a Democrat-turned-Republican with strong ties to the valley. He says his fellow Hispanic Texans may vote Democratic, but they are traditionalists on cultural issues, including abortion. Davis may be popular with the liberal set in Austin, but she doesn’t offer much to Peña’s constituents, he says.

    Also this:

    Davis herself doesn’t appear to be making much effort to court the Valley vote, or any vote for that matter. She’s noticeably inconspicuous on the trail, and even friendly media have a hard time finding her.

  • Davis gives a speech in Midland to sparse attendance. “Davis showed up to an almost empty room but despite the crickets, she told me she felt comfortable.” Ouch!
  • How Davis benefited from her law firm doing government bond work while she was a state senator.
  • At least she’s changed her logo from the sinking ship, even if the new logo looks a little familiar…

  • Two Dewhurst aides quit amid campaign feuding about tactics.” This is not exactly the sign of a well-oiled campaign machine…
  • Paul Burka even goes so far as to say that Dewhurst is toast: “The reality is that Dewhurst has been politically dead since the night of the Wendy Davis filibuster, and he has no hope to retain his office. Unless something very strange happens, Dan Patrick is a lock to be the state’s next lieutenant governor.” I’d say he’s been politically dead since losing to Ted Cruz in 2012…
  • Rick Casey not only thinks Dan Patrick will win, he thinks “Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick will be more powerful than Gov. Greg Abbott.” Agree on the first, disagree on the second, mainly because Greg Abbott is a lot more formidable than Dewhurst. It’s an interesting piece, despite making (I believe) some subtly wrong assumptions about Tea Party politics.
  • State of play piece by Ross Ramsey.

    Movement conservatives in Texas — a label that includes fiscal and social conservatives, Tea Partyers and the religious right — seem to be forming up behind Dan Patrick, a state senator running for lieutenant governor; Ken Paxton, a state senator running for attorney general; and Wayne Christian, a former state representative running for railroad commissioner. Each finished ahead of the establishment candidate in his race — in Patrick’s case, the incumbent lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst.

    Ramsey also notes money switching to conservative challengers. Plus this: “Every Republican senator has probably given some private thought to state Sen. John Carona’s loss to Donald Huffines, and that kind of private thinking often leads to changed voting patterns.”

  • Dan Patrick endorsed by Buc-ees. If they throw in free fudge, this race is so over…
  • Mike Huckabee endorses Ken Paxton. That probably means more to Huckabee than Paxton…

  • 14 Texas state house republicans ask Dan Branch to withdraw.
  • Democratic Agricultural Commissioner candidate Kinky Friedman calls marijuana farms the future of Texas.
  • Could Kinky Win?

    Tuesday, March 25th, 2014

    Short answer: No. Especially not this year. But Ross Ramsey is probably correct in saying that Kinky Friedman’s run for Agricultural Commissioner has a better chance of winning statewide than any other Democrat. Kinky has higher name recognition and fewer strong negatives than Wendy Davis or anyone else running.

    Too bad for him that Democrats are still bitter at him over “ruining” their one chance to take out Rick Perry.

    Kinky is a genuine Texas original, and there are a few Republicans I can see myself voting for Friedman over. Unfortunately for him, however, Sid Miller (the likely Republican runoff winner) isn’t one of them.

    Of course all this talk may be premature, since Friedman still has to get past primary opponent Jim Hogan on May 27.

    However, I believe that Ramsey is wrong when he states that “Friedman’s idea of legalizing marijuana and making it a cash crop in Texas is out of the mainstream and cannot possibly be a winning issue in a Texas election.”

    In fact, there is significant sentiment for marijuana legalization on the “libertarian/Tea Party/Leave me the hell alone” right, partially on Tenth Amendment grounds, and there the “legalize it, regulate it, and tax it” sentiment has been respectable on the right at least since 1992 or so. Certainly marijuana legalization wouldn’t pass the legislature, but I believe that in a (theoretical) statewide referendum would come a lot closer to passage this year than Wendy Davis will come to being elected.

    Brandon Creighton: Out of Agricultural Commissioner Race, in Senate District 4 Race

    Thursday, October 17th, 2013

    Following the unexpected retirement of State Senator Tommy Williams, Brandon Creighton announced he’s dropping out of the Ag Commissioner race to run for state Senate District 4.

    Republicans still in the Agricultural Commissioner’s race include:

  • J. Allen Carnes (Note: Auto-running popover videos are not calculated to win over voters.)
  • Tommy Merritt (Just a splash screen; less annoying, but also less informative.)
  • Eric Opiela (Just an ordinary campaign website, though it fails to mention Opiela’s close ties to Joe Straus.)
  • And Kinky Friedman just announced he’s running again as a Democrat.

    Texas Statewide Race Update for October 16, 2013

    Wednesday, October 16th, 2013

    Slowly but surely I’m digging out from my post-Worldcon backlog, so I hope to do more on various statewide races soon-ish (for certain values of “soon-ish” that work out to “before the end of the year”).

  • Greg Abbott reaches out to Hispanics.
  • He also promises to keep the Texas economy rolling.
  • Liberal fossil Paul Burka reiterates that Wendy Davis is doomed.
  • Battleground Texas is all in on Davis.
  • And speaking of Battleground Texas, proving they’re super classy, they made fun of Abbott being in a wheelchair.
  • Official Abbott announcement on Wendy Davis entering the race.
  • Abbott further said that he’s not worried about Wendy Davis.
  • Today Davis announced fundraisers in Conroe, Magnolia, and Waco. Ha, just kidding! She’s raising money in New York and Washington, D.C.. Good. The more money she takes from national Democrats, they less they can spend on races they might actually win.
  • Davis’ “true, natural constituency is the national, mainstream media.”
  • Davis used to be all-abortion, all the time, but that issue is now strangely missing from her speeches.
  • Longshot Tom Pauken is touting an Amarillo forum straw poll where he garnered 57% of the vote. Longshot Libertarian Kathie Glass came in second. I think these results are about as significant as that one straw poll Glenn Addison won in 2011.
  • Republican longshot Lisa Fritsch enters the Governor’s race. Here’s her website.
  • I do wonder why none of these longshots have considered taking on George P. Bush in the Land Commissioner’s race.
  • David Dewhurst calls for Obama’s impeachment. Somehow I sincerely doubt that U.S. Senator David Dewhurst would be making such a declaration…
  • Jerry Patterson suggests kicking four states out of the union. The piece notes this proposal was tongue-in-cheek. It also notes that Patterson was author of the Texas Concealed Carry law back in 1995, which I had forgotten.
  • Attorney General candidates Ken Paxton and Dan Branch roll out dueling legal endorsements.
  • Paxton campaigned in Midland.
  • Kinky Friedman is going to run for Agricultural Commissioner again as a Democrat, running on a marijuana legalization platform.
  • George P. Bush raised money for his Land Commissioner’s race in Dripping Springs.
  • Burka Gets Kinky

    Thursday, July 25th, 2013

    Liberal fossil Paul Burka is peeved that Kinky Friedman might run for office again. “When Friedman ran for governor in 2006, he helped make it impossible for Rick Perry to lose in a four-way race. By helping to divide the vote among four candidates, he enabled Perry to win with a pitiful plurality of 39%. I have no doubt that Friedman’s intention was to help Perry.”

    Burka calls another possible Friedman run “sick comedy.”

    A few points:

    1. When Friedman jumped into the 2006 Governor’s race as an independent in early 2005, it wasn’t a four-way race. It only turned into one when Comptroller Carole Stewart Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn realized that Perry was going to slaughter her in the GOP primary and dropped out to run as an independent.
    2. Watching the race unfold, I didn’t get the impression Friedman was running to ensure Perry’s re-election, but A.) Because he thought it would be fun to run for governor (and maybe even fun to be elected governor), B.) He was dissatisfied with the status quo, and C.) Given Jesse Ventura’s fairly recently election as Minnesota Governor, Friedman thought he could win as an independent. He was wrong, but it didn’t look like an inherently risible proposition when he ran.
    3. If Perry’s 39% was pitiful, what do we call Democrat Chris Bell’s 29%?
    4. By competitiveness standards, have Democrats run any “non-joke” candidates statewide in Texas lately?

    Now, I happen to agree with Burka’s assessment of Friedman’s political chances. But more interesting is the reason he feels the need to opine on them.

    Underlying Burka’s lament, and his obvious bitterness over Kinky’s candidacy, is the idea popular among his fellow liberal journalists that someone could have beaten Perry in 2006 if Kinky hadn’t split the vote. In some ways it’s a defensible position, as that was a “Bush Fatigue” wave year for Democrats and Perry was suffering from a number of self-inflicted wounds (toll roads, the Trans-Texas Corridor proposal, etc.). And maybe a popular, polished, well-funded Democratic candidate just might have had a chance to defeat Perry in 2006. Unfortunately for the Democrats (though fortunately for us), none was apparent on the scene in 2006. Or any time, really, since Bob Bullock and Ann Richards retired. Democrats didn’t come close to sending Perry home in 2006, and they haven’t any time since, letting him retire undefeated in gubernatorial contests.

    And so Burka’s great white whale escaped yet again…

    Will Kinky Friedman Run for Governor Again? Will Rick Perry?

    Thursday, August 9th, 2012

    Word is he’s considering a run in 2014.

    Could Kinky get nominated? Sure. You saw how little effort it took to run as a Democratic statewide for the Senate, and Kinky starts off with greater name recognition than any of the Dems in that race. There’s little indication any prominent Democrat wants to go through the meat-grinder of a statewide race (though if I were to guess, trial lawyer Jason A. Gibson, who launched an abortive Senate bid before Sadler got stamped with the union label, might make a run). Kinky’s probably to the right of the Democratic primary electorate, but I don’t see anyone with his name recognition talking about a run.

    Could Kinky do better than he did in 2006? Sure. Kinky only got 12.5% of the vote, coming in fourth. Even Democrat Chris Bell did better in that four-way race, pulling in just shy of 30% of the vote. That’s probably his absolute floor if he gets the Democratic nomination, and it’s probably closer to 40%.

    Could Kinky win? Doubtful, but not impossible. Save for 2006, Democratic gubernatorial candidates have pulled in between 40% (Tony Sanchez) and 42% (Bill White) of the vote against Rick Perry. Perry clearly damaged his popularity with the missteps of his abortive Presidential run (and, to a lesser extent, his endorsement of David Dewhurst’s failed senatorial campaign), though probably not enough to lose to Kinky (or any other Democrat), assuming he runs again. But two years is a long time, both good and bad. Perry has time to recover, but also to make a catastrophic error or fumble a crisis. And while it’s not nearly as widespread as the MSM would like you to believe, there is a certain amount of Perry fatigue among even Republican voters. Perry’s already the longest serving Governor in Texas history, having replaced George W. Bush on December 21, 2000. That’s an awful long time for anyone to be in the same office, and there are plenty of people ready to make the argument that it’s too long.

    Will Rick Perry run again in 2014? Answer cloudy, ask again later. Maybe even Perry doesn’t know yet. Word is that Attorney General Greg Abbott is itching for the office, and may run even if Perry doesn’t opt to retire. If I had to guess, I think it’s slightly more likely that Perry retires than that he runs again. He has nothing left to prove at a statewide level. Dewhurst’s implosion proved that even the most well-heeled Texas incumbents are vulnerable to a challenge from the right. Perry has very little to gain and much to lose from hanging on, and a Perry-Abbott race would be a brutal smackdown that could go either way. It would probably be in Perry’s best interest to assume that Texas A&M Presidency rumor has the diehard Aggie angling for as his post-gubernatorial sinecure, and possibly contemplate another Presidential run at the end of Romney’s second term. But Perry would hardly be the first politician to stay in office too long.

    Another gubernatorial run might not be good for Kinky, but it would be be good for the Texas Democratic Party, which resembles a moldy thing in a jar more than a viable alternative. Kinky might (might) even be able to shake off the stultifying far-left political correctness that has rendered the party uncompetitive in statewide races.

    It would also be good for the Republican Party of Texas; once you get past the Tea Party, there’s no one left to keep them honest.

    Still More 2012 Texas Senate Candidate News

    Friday, January 21st, 2011

    Add Republican Rep. Mike McCaul to the list of names of those considering a run.

    Polls show Dewhurst doing the best in polls against potential Democratic challengers, but all named Republicans beat all named Democrats. Given the state of Texas politics, that sounds about right.

    On the Democratic side, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro says he’s not running. Bill White also says no, despite Nate Silver’s pimping. Houston Sheriff Adrian Garcia also says he’s not interested, but his statement (“I have no interest in running for U.S. Senate at this time”) leaves a good bit more wiggle room.

    I keep hearing that John Sharp is going to run, but I wonder if anyone has told Sharp. He was making noises about it last March, and since then has been pretty much invisible. Signs of a Chet Edwards Senate run are even more non-apparent on the web.

    The Texas Tribune lists all sorts of wacky possibilities: Chris Bell (Maybe), George Prescott Bush (Bush41’s grandson, and No), Kinky Friedman (probably not, though he can’t do much worse than many of the other Democratic possibilities), Craig James (Maybe, but hard to see him gaining any traction in the Republican field; try running for the House first), Florence Shapiro (another Maybe, another person who couldn’t find traction in the Republican field), Leticia Van Putte (who?), and Farouk Shami (they actually asked him). Why not see if Phil Gramm or Dick Armey was coming out of retirement while you’re at it? Or some random Bullock or Hobby offspring?

    Not that it probably matters too much; there hasn’t been a Democrat elected in Texas statewide since Bob Bullock won in 1994, and Texas hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 (the same year the Dukakis/Bentsen ticket lost to Bush/Quayle). Things are always fluid in politics, but there does not appear to be any instant revival for the Texas Democratic Party over the horizon in the near future…