He showcased his outlandish humor in songs like “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore.” In 2006, he ran for governor as an independent, coming in fourth.
Singer-songwriter Kinky Friedman in 2006, making a campaign stop in Dallas during his unsuccessful run for Texas governor. Kinky Friedman, who became a Texas folk hero as a flamboyant singer-songwriter, satirist, raconteur and would-be politician, running for governor in 2006 while jokingly declaring that he was neither pro-life nor pro-choice, but instead “pro-football,” died June 26 at Echo Hill, his ranch outside Medina, Tex. He was 79.
Mr. Friedman was resolutely independent in his politics, resisting party labels even as he tended toward the libertarian side of the spectrum. He first ran for office in 1986, mounting a quixotic campaign for justice of the peace in Kerrville, near his ranch, and launched his long-shot bid for governor nearly three decades later, while calling for the legalization of gambling, marijuana and same-sex marriage.
Taking on Republican incumbent Rick Perry, who later served as energy secretary during the Trump administration, Mr. Friedman finished fourth, with 12 percent of the vote. If the result wasn’t quite what he wanted, he still seemed happy with the publicity. “I won that election,” he often said, “everywhere but Texas.”
While his parents weren’t musical, they supported their older son’s idiosyncratic interests, taking him to play chess with Samuel Reshevsky when the Polish grandmaster was passing through Houston on a tour. His sister said they were also tolerant when Mr. Friedman was assigned to write a newspaper article about a high school football game, then turned in a story that was written entirely in Latin, “which pleased two people and irritated many others.
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