Kinky. I think he's a lot like Ventura, except better with the press.
BTW, I think Gammage would stand a better chance in the election than Bell.
Gammage has skeletons in his closet, Bell is just an incompetant politician who inspires no one. The Democrats best chance to win the race is probably old Felix Alvarado, who I know personally, and who couldn't win in local race in Fort Worth to save his life.
I don't vote in Texas any more, but if I did, I would vote for Perry. Let me give a few reasons:
First, Perry did an excellent job during the whole Rita/Katrina thing in 2005, which both sides have acknowledged (except for Strayhorn). Leadership during crisis is something that is very important to me in a governor/president
Second, even though he hasn't been successful reforming the school budget (which must be done by June 2006), he's kept Texas in good fiscal condition on the whole, with balanced budgets the last couple of years and kept state spending under control. He's not very charismatic, and he's slightly too conservative on social issues for me, but in my opinion he's competant and the same cannot be said for the other candidates.
As for the other candidates, let me lay out my qualms:
Bell is a boring politician, who has no appeal outside of the standard liberal Democrat white vote (not to minorities). He was uninspiring as a Houston mayoral candidate in 2001, uninspiring when he ran for House in 2002, though the seat of Ken Bentsen fit him well and was really uninspiring when he got drawn out of his House seat in 2004.
Friedman is certainly entertaining, but way too liberal for me on social issues. He has said that he will immediately issue a moratorium on death row and that's pretty much enough for him to lose my interest.
Strayhorn is also very entertaining, but has a history of doing pretty much anything to get elected. As I had to point out before, she was in the late 1970s, early 1980s, a liberal Democrat mayor of Austin who supported the candidacy of Walter Mondale (for example).
Then, in 1985, she was going to run in the primary against then-Gov. Mark White. When she realized that she couldn't win in the Democrat primary, she switched parties and became a Republican, running against former Gov. Bill Clements, who won the primary and went on to beat White in the general election. I simply don't trust her.
It's too familiar to what she's done this time around for me, personally.