Those meddling kids!

I kind of like the way the Friedman campaign is responding to all of the negative publicity they've gotten lately. There's just nothing more attractive than whiny victimhood, is there?

So far, though, none of Friedman's opponents have taken credit for unearthing the 26-year-old audiotape on which he can be heard uttering the n-word during a standup comedy routine in Houston. It was published on a liberal Web site by an aide who works for a lawmaker supporting Chris Bell, the Democratic nominee in the governor's race.

But Bell said his campaign had nothing to do with the publication of the story. Aides to the other major candidates said they weren't involved, either.

Friedman campaign spokeswoman Laura Stromberg said Friedman used the epithet as a satirical attack on racism, and the campaign has dismissed requests for an apology. Instead, it portrayed the entertainer as the victim of desperate attacks by a "shadowy industry that lives and breathes on political assassination."

"This is why regular citizens don't run for office. If you do, and you start to threaten the system as Kinky has, you're going to be attacked," Stromberg said.

Still, she acknowledged the Friedman campaign itself has volunteers on staff to gather newspaper clips and review the Internet to see what opponents have said and done.

Stromberg said she makes a big distinction between campaigns that get a few interns to look at publicly available records and those that spend thousands on outside firms to dig up years-old dirt.

How about publicly available records being looked at by, um, members of the public? Does that work for you? All I can say is that if the BOR boys have been getting paid thousands of dollars to find this stuff, they owe the rest of us a few beers.

Honestly, it's almost quaint the way these "outsider" campaigns seem to think they're above the fray when it comes to actual politics. If you can't defend your own words, what will you do when the real dirt starts flying?

Jeremy Warren of S&W Capitol Advisors in Austin, which specializes in both offensive and defensive research, disagrees. He says dirt is dirt, records are records, and facing your past is part of life in U.S. politics -- even for outsiders like Friedman.

"This is a guy who has made his entire career out of being outlandish and making statements that push the envelope," said Warren, a Democrat. "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen."

[...]

How much damage has been inflicted upon Friedman's run for Texas governor won't be known for a while.

But it's not all coming from the broadcast that suddenly appeared on a Web site 26 years after it was recorded. A day before the recording hit the Internet, Friedman was fending off complaints about comments he made a few months ago in a CNBC television interview, excerpts from which were posted on the Internet. In it, he called Negro a charming word and said he would punish sex offenders by throwing them in jail and making them "listen to a Negro talking to himself."

Republican Gov. Rick Perry later criticized the remarks as racist. Perry spokesman Robert Black said any candidate for governor should expect to face scrutiny over what they say in television interviews.

Although the Perry campaign routinely conducts opposition research, Black says it hasn't done any on Friedman.

"We didn't think we'd have to," Black said. "Turns out we were right."

Hard to argue with either of those sentiments if you ask me.

UPDATE: Holy crap. When did Jesse Ventura start channeling Anton LaVey? Norbizness, call your office - I think we may need a special emergency caption contest this week.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on September 26, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack