Sporting a cowboy hat on his head and a cigar in his mouth, Richard “Kinky” Friedman is the quintessential Texan – a Texan sick of bipartisan politics and bureaucracies. This is why he’s running for governor of Texas in 2006 on the Independent ticket. Kinky is truly a modern-day cowboy: conquering the basically unknown frontier of impartial politics. He refuses to identify with either party, but after examining his platform, it’s clear that he’s a conservative, nay, a realist, with intentions of bettering Texas for the long run. He is definitely an independent for the brash Texas that once was, and even though it won’t help his election, he has this conservative’s full support.

It started as a gag, but Kinky’s now heading a powerful “anti-campaign” (as his Web site calls it). The Kinkster has major plans for education reform, including lowering the dropout rate and consulting real teachers – not bureaucrats – about statewide curriculum, a novel concept that this teacher-to-be encourages. He wants to plug millions of dollars into the school system to fund this overhaul and keep “no teacher left behind,” as he puts it.

According to Kinky’s campaign Web site, if elected, he’ll fund this revamp by legalizing gambling in Texas with the profit going straight to education. What a fresh idea: Let the teachers teach, and give them the resources to do so. I can’t believe it hasn’t been considered before.

Kinky also has a position on the infamous Texas death penalty, according to his Web site: He’s all for it. He recognizes, however, that Texas has put some innocent people to death, and thus advocates DNA and forensic testing to ensure a person’s undeniable guilt before he or she is put to death. A very just move by Kinky, it squashes the argument often used by liberals that the death penalty is wrong because innocent people suffer.

Above all, Kinky is a humanitarian. He proposes a plan for a Texas Peace Corps, modeled after the national organization in which he served. Kinky’s plan would recruit retired educators and artisans into schools to teach kids everything from painting to balancing a checkbook.

He has a social agenda, too. You might not like it – for those who are faint of heart (or the truth), please put the column down. Kinky believes that Texas is experiencing what he calls a “wussification” caused by political correctness. I completely agree, but it is not limited to Texas.

Americans assign euphemisms to negative concepts in hopes of making the unpleasant seem nicer. In the process, we’re becoming big, fat crybabies and, even worse, victims. Kinky reasons that if we abolish political correctness, Texas will return to the glory from which it fell. Because according to Kinky (as quoted on his Web site), “We didn’t get to be the Lone Star state by being politically correct.”

But the reason I really like Kinky (hush, you!) is because he wants to bring young people into his administration. He thinks younger people are less corrupt than our older, more cynical counterparts. Unlike so many professional politicians, Kinky realizes that our generation is quickly becoming the future of America and is actively working to engage us in it.

Were I a Texan (as I hope to be someday), Kinky would have my vote. He’s realistic and refuses to sugarcoat the social and political problems plaguing our country. Kinky appeals to everyone: the traditionalist, the modern, the liberal and the conservative.

We could take a lesson from Kinky: He says what he believes without subscribing to any single ideology. He is as authentic as they come. If elected, he claims he would completely renovate the state government of Texas, hopefully with the rest of the country following suit. And I trust him, because as he announces to his potential voters, “I’m a Jew; I’ll hire good people.”

Taylor Williams is a junior majoring in English education.