I had hoped to do a list of major and interesting donors to Kinky Friedman’s campaign, as I have done for the Bell, Perry, and Strayhorn campaigns. But — and I trust this will not come as a huge surprise — the Friedman campaign is not like the Bell, Perry, and Strayhorn campaigns. It has only three major donors. The rest of the money has come from online sales of merchandise (T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs), which count as contributions, and from online donations. Look at the Perry, Bell, and Strayhorn reports and you’ll see a lot of donations in round numbers with at least four digits. Look at the Friedman report and you’ll see how much T-shirts cost. “The other candidates get thousands from a special few,” a Friedman staffer told me. “We get a few dollars from thousands of special people.” Of the $1.55 million the Friedman campaign received in the semiannual cycle, approximately half came over the Internet ($515,000 from sales of merchandise and another $241,000 in donations).
Here are the major donors. (This won’t take long.)
*Barbara H. Bowman, San Antonio, medical research, $75,000. (The San Antonio Cancer Institute awards a prize in her name.)
*John McCall, Spicewood, beauty supplies, $225,000 (two contributions). (A longtime friend of Friedman’s.)
*Mark Shurley, Fredericksburg, attorney, $51,200 (two contributions). (Another old friend.)
