Note To Our Texas Readers

Texas readers: don't believe the hype.

Because you are most definitely getting hyped, what with our former governor Jesse Ventura campaigning for Kinky Friedman:

If Jesse could do it, why not Kinky?

Distilled to its essence, that's the animating rationale behind Friedman's run for Texas governor, eight years after Ventura "shocked the world" (his words) by winning Minnesota's governorship.

Both kicked off candidacies that were widely derided as vanity campaigns. Both were initially dismissed as non-politicians who had near-universal name recognition, yet were given no chance of winning.

Now, just as Minnesotans were sold a bill of goods about Jesse Ventura, so were non-Minnesotans. We in Minnesota realized it when we saw Ventura cranking up spending, spending the surplus, and french-kissing liberal DFL leader Roger Moe in several straight legislative sessions.

Now, people like Limbaugh believed the hype for years - the idea that Ventura was really a libertarian populist with pseudo-conservative roots. Barring a few bits of political veneer (puffy rhetoric about legalizing prostitution, cutting vehicle and boat fees), it was crap, of course; Ventura was a sock puppet for a small cabal of "neolibs" - a couple of DFLers who were just a tad too moderate to fit into the Minnesota Demcratic Farmer Labor party of John Marty, Paul Wellstone and Becky Lourey.

And who were the members of that little ring of mushy pseudolefties? Former congressman Tim Penny, and...

...Dean Barkley, the architect of Ventura's improbable victory, and adman Bill Hillsman, creator of the rule-breaking campaign ads for Ventura and the late Paul Wellstone.

Penny and Barkley pulled the strings. Ventura talked.

For Texas' sake, my Texan friends - don't buy it. Walk away.

Posted by Mitch at September 26, 2006 06:39 AM | TrackBack