Once upon a time, I was sitting in a Perkins diner in Lexington, Kentucky, drinking coffee and listening to a speech delivered by Gatewood Galbraith.

This man — lawyer, pot-advocate, perennial gubernatorial “hopeful” and self-styled Last Free Man in America — was talking a lot of sense to the crowd of fifty or so who showed up, all of them eager to volunteer in whatever capacity they could.  (Of course, this invariably meant bumper-sticker detail…)

Later, I spoke with a man who identified himself as Galbraith’s campaign manager (I forget his name), and had prepared a snarky resume with which to earn a place on a campaign that I not only believed in at the time, but felt sincerely needed all the help it could get even from a jerk like myself. Yet the campaign never got back to me after that fateful evening at Perkins, and so I watched with disappointment the conventional-wisdom-approved ascension of Steven Beshear as the KDP’s next sitting governor of this Commonwealth.

It was only a matter of time, however, before Galbraith, like a clockwork phoenix, would rise again for another run — and that time is now:

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Lexington attorney Gatewood Galbraith has filed a letter of intent with the state saying he intends to run for governor in 2011.

Galbraith, a perennial gubernatorial candidate, filed the letter with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance earlier this week. He is the first potential gubernatorial candidate to do so. He lists his party affiliation as an independent. [C-J, via AP, via robots]

And:

“I believe we can raise over a million dollars and win this race,” Galbraith said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Galbraith said he was running for governor “to combat Kentucky’s electile dysfunction. Nothing has happened in this state for years and it’s the fault of both major political parties. I want to help the electorate change that.”

Galbraith, 62, has maintained that he has no concerns about being a perennial candidate. “Kentucky has perennial problems,” he said. [BluegrassPolitics]

Electile dysfunction! Har har har!

Practically speaking, Galbraith will be felled by the same Achilles’ heel that has always done him in: Forever branded as “that weed guy,” he’ll never get enough of this state’s atavistic, god-fearing electorate behind him to be anything more than a fringe wild card that marginally siphons votes from his liberal (yet conventional) primary opponents. It’s a shame, too, because the crazy bastard is smart as a whip, devoid of bullshit and could definitely shake things up in Frankfort for the better, which is why I’m advocating he cryogenically freeze himself until the state is ready for the weed — say, 2051? (The coffee will be on me next time)