“Another Jewboy bites the dust,” said Kinky Friedman, reacting to the news that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his GOP primary in Virginia . “The crowd picked Barabas,” Friedman added, a reference to the crowd at Golgotha choosing to grant mercy to the thief Barabas over Jesus, who went on to die on the cross.  

Friedman, in town to perform Wednesday night at the Washington Jewish Music Festival , experienced his own political defeat recently, losing his race for Texas agriculture commissioner in the Democratic primary runoff last month to Jim Hogan. “The people have spoken, the bastards,” Friedman quipped with a line generally attributed to Democratic campaign operative Dick Tuck and the late Rep. Morris K. Udall, D-Ariz.  

While Friedman says he’s pretty sure he’s through with electoral politics (He’s previously run for governor of Texas as well as agriculture commissioner.), he nevertheless keeps in touch with his local congressman, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas. Smith hosted Friedman at Wednesday’s Texas Breakfast Club at the American Trucking Association on Capitol Hill. He found himself sitting between Smith and Rep. Louie Gohmert, another Texas Republican. “Lamar’s seen as a pretty straight arrow,” Friedman, said, allowing that he himself is known for political incorrectness. “We’re an odd couple. But Lamar loves two things I love: music and animals,” he added, referring to his long career in country western music, which started with the 1973 album “Sold American,” and his stewardship of the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch in Kerrville, Texas.  

Regarding the breakfast, Friedman said, “This was better’n I thought it’d turn out,” and he was particularly charmed by Gohmert and Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. Gohmert, Friedman said, was a fan of his mystery novels. “Between him and Lamar, you almost have an adequate human being. One guy loves the books, the other likes the music,” he said.  

And of the other political news of the day, such as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s new book, “Hard Choices,” and whether he’d be reading it? “Possibly at gunpoint,” he deadpanned.  

Speaking of books, now that politics is in the rearview mirror, Friedman is working on a new mystery novel, his first in almost a decade, tentatively titled, “The Hard-Boiled Computer.”  

“Politics’ loss may be literature’s gain,” he said.