The story of the current kerfuffle over yet another racially ignorant remark by Kinky Friedman is, among other things, an interesting peek into how something becomes a story. See, as the article says and as Phillip and Ryan document, this particular remark was made months ago, with video of it being uploaded to YouTube, but at that time it caused nary a peep outside of the blogs. Why is it news now? It's simple. Back then, Kinky was a Celebrity. Now he's a candidate, and what he says is fair game.

It's funny, because back when he was this Colorful Celebrity Novelty Who Says Outrageous Things, and Boy Won't He Make This Dull Campaign More Interesting, Friedman would insist at the end of every fawning feature story about his candidacy that he was really serious about running for Governor. And now he knows that while the media thinks nothing of an Eccentric Gadfly saying weird things, they think it's a bit distasteful coming from a serious candidate. Be careful what you wish for.

Now, will any of this come back to hurt Friedman with the voters? Hard to say. You'd think that sooner or later liberals, who give Friedman a fair bit of support, will eventually get the message that he doesn't share their values. But Friedman's a cult-of-personality candidate, and that can make his supporters fairly impervious to logic, as Bobby notes. You've got to try, though, and I hope that more Democrats raise their voices against him.

We've all been saying this for months, and it's as true today as it ever was: If Chris Bell can get a unified Democratic vote, he can win. It's as simple as that. If you're not voting for Bell, you're voting for Perry.