How Hard Can It Be? Plenty.

Don't miss our election autopsy in today's print edition. Specifically, let me point you to Jordan Smith's recap of Kinky Friedman's election night "party," where he sulked off like a neutered dog from his rescue ranch. (It's the third article down.)

I think a lot of people were genuinely excited and energized by Friedman's announcement to run – at first. I was. Who didn't want to shake up the Republican lockstep rule? But as time went on, Friedman's disdain and disinterest for policy, for ideas, for leadership – for anything – began to grate. To paraphrase the ad from his campaign's waning days, "A cowboy doesn't know about education; he teaches." (Or some such similar nonsense.) Well, the Governor's Mansion has been controlled for a might-long time by people that "don't know about education," and look where's that's gotten us. To just barely allowable under the law.

Some are tempted to paint the Kinkster as a spoiler for the Bell campaign. But as Michael King points out today, aside from his stance on drugs, biodiesel and slots-for-tots, his platform (what there was of it, seemingly hammered together piecemeal as he needed it) was decidedly conservative. This post from a former Kinky Kool-Aid swiller was winding its way through the Texas blogosphere in the weeks before the election. It makes many good points about Friedman's campaign, especially following his debate meltdown. But its main thrust – that the only way Friedman could have been a change agent was to shift his support to Bell – we'll never know.

It's almost surprising that the Kinkster took it so hard on election night – he sure didn't seem to sweat anything during the run up to it.