Dallas Morning News Endorses Kinky

As you may already know, Kinky Friedman (musician, writer, comic and Texas iconoclast) is running for Texas Agriculture Commissioner against East Texas farmer and politician Hank Gilbert. They will face off in the Democratic primary next month to see who gets to run against the Republican incumbent next November.

The Gilbert campaign has recently been bragging about the many endorsements they have been receiving, but now Kinky's campaign has received an unexpected and important endorsement of its own. The Dallas Morning News has officially endorsed Kinky Friedman for Agriculture Commissioner in the Democratic primary. That's a welcome boost for the campaign to be endorsed by one of the state's largest newspapers.

Here's some of what the Dallas Morning News had to say:

"Picture cigar-chomping entertainer Kinky Friedman as state agriculture commissioner. It's hard to see him in any statewide office, really, but his talent for folksy one-liners could at least be useful in the important role of promoting Texas farm and ranch products."

"Gilbert knows agriculture issues in vastly greater depth than Friedman, but he would lead Texas in the wrong direction in key areas. One is a move away from globalization and toward protectionism. . . says he is not a big fan of crop subsidies. . . would take the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir off the table as a possible water source for the burgeoning Dallas-Fort Worth area."

"Friedman, 65, of Austin, doesn't get into such details. He says he'd hire experts to hash out policy so he could concentrate on being a spokesman for family farms and kindness to animals. That's not a great model for the job, but a better one than Gilbert proposes."

That's kind of a backhanded endorsement, but it's still an endorsement -- and an important one. Kinky also has the endorsement of the good folks over at Immigration Clearinghouse who say, "Our endorsement stays with our longtime friend Kinky Friedman in his quest for the powerful post of Texas Ag Commissioner."

And of course, Kinky has the endorsement of this blog (which I doubt will matter very much).