Full Frontal

Well the Kinkster gone and done it. From his campaigners:

"It's official—this November, under "Governor," you'll see the Kinkster's name on the ballot. And not only that, we pulled off a huge upset in the process: you all collected over 25,000 more valid signatures than Carole Strayhorn, and did it with 1/10th the budget! As Kinky said in our last email, the effort that produced our petition drive was unprecedented. It reflects the kind of hungry-for-change support you just can't buy—support that comes from all of you.

Today's the day to send a message. In the campaign disclosure reports released this month, our opponents revealed that they outraised Kinky 2:1 during the last reporting period. Don't let that happen again. We have from now until June 30th to raise as much money as we can for the current reporting period and show the world that we can match our volunteer spirit with dollars in the bank. Click the link below to donate to the campaign and strike a blow for clean politics and Texas independence."

https://www.kinkyfriedman.com/contribute/index.html?ref=1002

There is something interesting (probably only to me) that I spotted in chron.com about the nature of people who signed petitions for One Tough Grandma and One Tough Jew:

"After a preliminary review, Williams certified 108,512 of the 222,514 signatures submitted by Strayhorn and 137,154 of the 170,258 signatures submitted by Friedman. All signers had to be registered voters who didn't cast ballots in either major party's primary or runoff this year, and they could sign only for one candidate.

Spokesmen for Perry and Bell chided Strayhorn, a veteran officeholder and campaigner, for collecting fewer valid signatures than Friedman, running his first race for elective office."

Look! Only 40-something percent of grandma's sigs got certified and 80-somein' percent for Gov. Friedman. Everywhere I've been from the garden club to the titty bar I was accosted by some one's petition drivers. Now I see that only half of her base actually has a voter registration card, and they either lied about it or didn't know what "you have to be a registered voter" meant. If you like tin foil hats, you might imagine somebody really wanted to pump up Scotty the Liar's mom with bogus sigs. Who knows?

Over at the capitolannex.com one of Vince's gremlins wrote this piece of pretzle logic:

But how much of those base percentages can realistically be expected to hold? "Perry got 92 percent of the Republican vote in 2002," says Baselice. "If he only gets 80 percent of his base, that puts him at 40 percent right away. But then you have to remember that he also got 15 percent of the Democratic vote against Sanchez." Of the roughly 50 percent Republican vote, Baselice sees 80 percent going to Perry, 10 percent to Strayhorn, 5 percent to Bell, and 5 percent to Friedman. Of the Democrats' 35 percent, he sees 75 percent going to Bell, 10 percent to Perry, 10 percent to Strayhorn, and 5 percent to Friedman. He assumes that the 15 percent independent vote will be split 30-30-30 among Perry, Strayhorn, and Bell, followed by Friedman with 10. The net result: Perry wins with 48 percent, followed by Bell at 33.25 percent, Strayhorn at 13 percent, and Friedman at 5.75 percent."

Texas politics is funny, huh?