Kinky polls

The San Antonio Business Journal has an online poll up showing Kinky Friedman winning the governor’s race in a landslide with 53 percent of the vote compared to 24 percent for Rick Perry, 14 percent for Carole Keeton Strayhorn and an anemic 5 percent for Democrat Chris Bell.

The poll is no doubt a bit skewed today by the fact that Kinky is touting the results on his web site. But he was still winning with a healthy 40 percent of the vote before legions of Kinksters began flooding the site and driving up his numbers. Kinky also won a similar poll conducted last month by the Austin Business Journal.

While polls in general and certainly online polls are not the most accurate barometers for what will actually happen in November, it still raises the possibility that Kinky could be a big factor in the election. I think there is a good chance that Perry will not be able to reach 50 percent of the vote in November and will be forced into a run-off and it looks increasingly likely that his runoff opponent could be Kinky Friedman.

What will this mean for Texas? I’m not sure. It’s not great news for Democrats if their candidate comes in third or fourth in the election. But I’ve never held out very high hopes for Chris Bell. While I will vote for him in the general election, I just don’t think a one-term congressman has the stature or the name recognition necessary to pull off a victory in a statewide race like this. I hope I’m wrong. But that’s why I was hoping that John Sharp would have jumped into the race and that’s why I voted for Bob Gammage in the primary.
And while I’m not a “Kinkster,” I have to say that if the race came down to a Perry vs. Friedman runoff I would find myself asking “Why the hell not?”

UPDATE & CORRECTION

In comments, someone much wiser than myself points out there are no runoffs in general elections. D'oh! That shoots my theory out of the water. I don't see anyway now that Kinky can win the governership. It looks like we'll be stuck with Rick Perry for another four years. Damn.
Wait! Maybe if Chris Bell drops out and the Democrats cross-endorse Kinky and, and... Oh! Nevermind.