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Friedman looks to take political luck from Luck
Associated Press
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SPICEWOOD
— Kinky Friedman began the final campaign weekend just outside Austin at Willie
Nelson's Luck Ranch, owned by his longtime buddy and fellow Texas entertainer,
looking for some good luck late in his long-shot independent gubernatorial
effort.
"I like luck and I
need luck and I want luck," Friedman said today, standing next to Nelson
outside a corral where a half-dozen horses were grazing and running behind
them. "Being in luck is always a wonderful experience."
"If you're not here,
you're out of Luck," Nelson said.
The horses, from
Oklahoma, were among 11 recently adopted by Nelson and saved from slaughter
with their meat intended for shipment overseas. Nelson and Friedman said the horses
likely would be slaughtered at a plant in Kaufman, near Dallas, and used the
campaign stop to push for congressional passage of the American Horse Slaughter
Prevention Act.
The act has been passed
by the House and is under consideration by the Senate.
Friedman said if he's
elected governor Tuesday, the first two things he'd do is reopen two Indian
casinos in the state and close two horse slaughter plants rather than wait for
congressional approval. The other plant is in Fort Worth.
"I just don't think
we can rely on the feds for anything," he said. "It's been 153 years,
and they haven't helped us yet. I think the governor could probably do it, with
the people of Texas and Willie."
Horse meat is not
marketed as table fare in the United States, but the slaughter plants process
hundreds of horses each week. Horse meat is considered a delicacy in Europe,
Japan and other places. The legislation doesn't directly prohibit horse
slaughter but would effectively halt such operations by banning the transport
and sale of horses for human consumption.
"When I grew up, I
didn't want to eat my horse," Nelson said. "I didn't know people ate
their horses."
"All this horse meat
is going to France. This is ridiculous," Friedman said, saying the
industry "has no business being in Texas."
Friedman disputed polls
that show him lagging well behind Republican Gov. Rick Perry, Democratic
challenger Chris Bell and fellow independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who was
elected comptroller as a Republican.
"We're hearing
everybody is voting for us and that none of the polls reflect this,"
Friedman said. "And that's because the polls are all doing the 'likely
voter' thing."
Friedman's strategy has
been to appeal to nontraditional voters, particularly those who haven't voted
in previous elections and those who stayed away from the 2002 race, where only
29 percent of registered Texans voted.
Secretary of State Roger
Williams predicted the turnout in Tuesday's election will be 36 percent, or
4.68 million of the state's registered voters. That's up by about 130,000
voters compared with the 2002 governor's election.
"I would have liked
it to be more than 40 percent," Dean Barkley, Friedman's campaign manager,
said Saturday.
At a rally in San
Antonio, where more than 100 supporters were crammed into a beer and hamburger
joint, Friedman disputed his opponents' arguments that a vote for him was a
vote wasted and accused them of "two-party arrogance."
"They're nervous
right now," he said. "We're up against a lot of money. We're hanging
in there like a hair in a biscuit. If you vote your hearts and dreams, you
can't waste your vote. There's no way."
He made his usual
campaign pitch advocating decriminalization of marijuana.
"One stupid mistake
can ruin your future," he said of those convicted of marijuana possession.
He also said he thought
it would be a good idea to lower the state's drinking age to 18.
"I think it ought to
be OK to have a beer before you go to Iraq," he said.