"I think we're carrying the ball," said Friedman, an independent candidate who faces Republican Gov. Rick Perry, Democrat Chris Bell, independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Libertarian James Werner in the Nov. 7 election.
Last week, the Texas NAACP president and a leading black legislator criticized Friedman for a joke he told in 1980 in which he used the n-word in reference to blacks. He also has come under fire for a race-related remark he made in a television interview last year and for other comments about Hurricane Katrina evacuees and about ethnic groups.
Friedman said he's not a racist and that he was satirizing racism during a comedy routine when he told the joke in 1980.
"If you're attacking bigotry through humor, that is far better than pretending that bigotry doesn't exist," Friedman said in an interview Monday morning.
"I've been outside of politics all my life so I've done something.
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