One Tough Grandma is about to say something

... about her 2006 plans.

Lots of other bloggers are reporting and speculating on this rumor/news.

Here's my take:

1. This has to chap Kay Bailey's ass. Now she has to a) announce her own intentions sooner than she planned in order to avoid being left in the starting gate, or b) continue shilly-shallying and risk looking indecisive.

2. Rick Perry's going to have his hide torn off between now and next spring. And he'll have to spend millions of dollars to try and lock down the nomination, money he could have saved for autumn, 2006.

3. It makes a Kinky candidacy either less likely or more formidable, depending on your POV. Friedman needs something like 50,000* signatures of registered voters who can't have voted in either primary next May, and he has a small window after those primaries to gather them. So if he can get on the ballot -- a tall task, considering how many people will be drawn to a GOP primary with Perry and Hutchison and Strayhorn and a Dem primary with possibly Chris Bell and maybe John Sharp -- he stands a reasonable chance of drawing off that 15 or perhaps 20% of general election votes, giving him kingmaker status.

Dammit, I've got to get to Costco for a case of Orville Redenbacher's ...

*Update: An e-mail to me corrects the numbers of signatures required for an independent candidacy to between 45,000 and 50,000. Holy shit.