(Charles) Barkley may run in 2010

[Syrinx]

DESTIN, Fla. - Charles Barkley, declaring himself a Democrat, said Tuesday he is seriously considering a run for governor of Alabama, maybe as early as 2010.

"I'm serious," Barkley said. "I've got to get people to realize that the government is full of it. Republicans and Democrats want to argue over stuff that's not important, like gay marriage or the war in Iraq or illegal immigration. They push those issues because they play well on TV and because they deceive people. When I run - if I run - we're going to talk about real issues like improving our schools, cleaning up our neighborhoods of drugs and crime and making Alabama a better place for all people."

"I really believe I was put on Earth to do more than play basketball and stockpile money," he said. "I really want to help people improve their lives, and what's left is for me to decide how best to do that."

He discounted speculation that he considers himself a Republican.

"What I've said is I'm rich like a Republican. But I'm not one," Barkley said.

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1153906206247070.xml&coll=2

[WI_DEM]

1. Good

[jody]

2. Barkley can run but IMO he is not qualified and will not be elected. n/t

[nealmhughes]

4. He is of age and a legal resident of the state and has a college degree.

Sounds pretty qualified to me. Bill Bradley anyone?

[Jack from Charlotte]

7. Aubrin? A college? And does he really have a degree? nt

*

[Warren DeMontague]

46. Bush has an MBA

Bill Gates dropped out of College.

Degrees don't necessarily equate to intelligence, or competence.

[jody]

11. Barkley left Auburn after three years and probably didn't complete

his degree. In either case, I doubt he did very well as a student.

He was a Repug for years and supported Bush, neither of which is very appealing to me.

I believe Barkley is a resident of Arizona.

[fujiyama]

14. When did Barkely support Bush?

Maybe years ago he did. The only reason people think he's a repug is because of the conversation he said he had with his grandmother about why his family was democratic.

Everytime I've seen him on TV discussing politics, he's been very critical of repukes and he backed John Edwards in the primaries. He has also said that Clinton and Carter were the only two presidents he has seen that were able to relate to the black community. I also remember him saying tolerant things about gays - which as an African American in sports, is not really very common.

I'm not saying he's the perfect choice, but I have seen nothing to suggest he's a conservative and he's sure be better than the nutjob repuke Alabama has right now.

[jody]

15. Barkley was a Repug until July 2006.

Politics
QUOTE
Barkley, who spoke proudly for many years of his Republican Party affiliation, was once rumored to be a possible G.O.P. candidate for Alabama's governorship.<1> He announced his defection to the Democratic Party in July 2006. "I was a Republican until they lost their minds," he said. "The word 'conservative' means 'discriminatory,' practically. It's a form of political discrimination. What do the Republicans run on? Against gay marriage and for a war that makes no sense. A war that was based on faulty intelligence. That's all they ever talk about. That and immigration. Another discriminatory argument for political gain."<2>.
UNQUOTE

[Benhurst]

5. Yes, the bar for holding public office in Alabama is set high, indeed.

[jody]

12. Qualifications for public office in Alabama are the same as other states.

[Benhurst]

17. Sorry, I forgot my "sarcasm" emotion icon. But to be fair,

as bad as Alabama politicians have been, they would have to try hard to beat Senators Dole and Burr of North Carolina.

[jody]

18. I'll bet Alabama's Senator Sessions is among the worst in the Senate. n/t

[Benhurst]

19. I'll take that bet and raise you two: Dole and Burr.

:rofl:

[dsc]

8. In the country which elected Jesse Ventura and Arnold Swartzeneger

I think Barkley would have a shot.

[WilliamPitt]

26. They said the same thing about Schwartzenegger

[jody]

35. And they were right. n/t

[renate]

44. agreed--however, Arnold wasn't qualified either but he was elected

I'm no particular fan of Charles Barkley, but lots of people are--so if he's going to run, I'm glad he's going to run as a Democrat.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. What a sweet guy. Hope he does it.

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. The war in Iraq is not important?

I don't dislike Barkley, but I have a hard time trusting Repubs turned Dem. I'm all for people seeing the light, and I welcome them to the big tent, but they'll have to prove to me that they can be trusted.

[Syrinx]

9. I think what he meant was...

That we have no business over there in the first place. I could be wrong though.

[Tarheel_Dem]

22. You may be right....

or at least I hope so. If I've misinterpreted his words, I humbly ask Mr. Barkley's forgiveness.

[proud patriot]

10. I hope he's able to help a lot of people

Good for him remembering where he came from ...

I have a similar dream as Barkley's I just haven't
found the means to stockpile money .

I do what I can with what I have :hi:

[Syrinx]

27. If you find that secret, let me know!

I'm not that good at basketball. :hi:

[tom_paine]

13. Good. Barkley stands foresquare for Liberty. I like it.

Plus, you think there's a Bushevik with the balls to call him trator or a Bin Laden fan or any of the other shit they routinely call Dems?

HELL NO!

[LoveMyCali]

25. It would make for some interesting debates

Don't you think? lol Can you imagine a politician that actually says what he thinks? Maybe Charles isn't cut out for politics after all.

[Rosco T.]

16. Sir Charles is a gentleman and a kind man..

.. met him several times a few years ago.

[Syrinx]

30. I've never met him myself, but...

I know a couple people that have met him. They all say he's really a nice guy. As long as you don't abuse him. Then he'll send you through a plate-glass window. Maybe we need some Democratic politicians like that. ;)

[Rhiannon12866]

20. Okay, my friend, LOL!

I happen to agree with what he's saying, glad to hear he's waking up, but I remember when he declared himself to be a Republican, a few years ago, because he had a lot of money... It will take more than this for me to believe him now. But then I can't vote in Alabama.:-)

Rhiannon:hi:

[Syrinx]

28. Hi Rhiannon!

I've heard conflicting tales on this, but I think the confusion resulted from a conversation he related with his grandmother when they were discussing politics. His grandma said that she was a Democrat because Republicans "are for the rich people." And supposedly he replied, "But grandma, I am rich."

I'm not necessarily saying I would vote for him (in the primary). But I would have an open mind about it. He's certainly as qualified as Arnold or Jesse Ventura.

By the way, have you seen any good made-for-tv movies about '70's sitcoms lately? ;)

:hi:

EDIT: I misspelled "sitcoms." Can you imagine?

[Rhiannon12866]

32. Actually, I received this thread from my friend, who's a huge sports fan.

She finally joined DU after I had been sending her threads I thought she'd be interested in, for a few years, LOL! She joined as a present to me on my birthday last fall and, for her birthday a month later, I gave her a star.:-)

Anyway, she gets a kick out of Charles Barkley and is currently reading his book, so she passed this thread on to me, not knowing that you were a friend of mine.:D

And she was the one who told me that Charles was a Republican. I was surprised to hear this, since why any black person, rich or not, would become a Republican is a mystery to me.:shrug:

And my friend wrote me back that she thinks he's way too outspoken to get far in politics, LOL, but she'd love to hear him in a debate...:rofl:

And I haven't seen any more TVM's (as we call them in the biz :D ), but I did see a really great movie recently, that my friend rented, "Everything Is Illuminated." It's about a young Jewish guy who is a "collector" of family history and travels to the Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather's life during WWII. It's both touching and has some very funny parts. Whenever anyone here has asked for movie recommendations, recently, that's the one I suggest... BTW, my favorite character is Sammy Davis Junior Junior, the "officious seeing eye bitch" (a very talented border collie, LOL!) You might want to check it out...:thumbsup:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404030/

Rhiannon:hi:

Edited to add link. And I misspelled my name...:silly:

[Syrinx]

39. I'd watch Charles Barkley debate a Republican on Pay-Per-View!

I don't actually BUY many books, but I've been looking for "Who's Afraid Of A Large Black Man" at the library. I haven't found it yet, but I'm sure it's amusing, if nothing else.

Yeah, black Republicans, just like gay Republicans, really confound me. Well, any Republican does if you get right down to it.

I'm glad you got your friend to sign on. Any friend of yours is bound to be a nice person!

Haven't heard before of the movie you mention, but the dog named Sammy Davis Junior Junior is enough to make me want to see it! Sounds like it might pop up on Sundance. (When I was little I had an "imaginary friend" named "Mr. Mister." This was long before the band of that name... I've considered litigation. :) )

Talk to you soon, I hope. :hi:

[LoveMyCali]

41. Hi Syrinx

I am the friend that Rhiannon was talking about in her post . :hi:

The book that I am currently reading is "Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man." I got it for Christmas and am just got around to starting it last week while I was on vacation. I'm not that far into it yet but I wouldn't really say it's amusing, more thought provoking.

Charles' point is that we have to at least bring about discussions on racism which he calls the biggest cancer of his lifetime. He's interviewed people from all walks of life and interjected his own thoughts. If nothing else Charles is always interesting.

[Syrinx]

42. Nice To Meet You!

I'm pleased to make your acquaintance.

Rhiannon is a really sweet lady isn't she?

I'm going to be on the outlook for Mr. Barkley's book when I visit the library. It really sounds interesting. I'm not supposed to like him since I'm a 'Bama fan, and he played for Auburn. Don't tell anyone that I've always had kind of a soft spot for the guy. ;)

(By the way, I used to pass a really fine home up near Birmingham all the time. I can't remember if it was Barkley or Bo Jackson, but one of them bought it for their mother. Really nice home. Anyway, that's neither here nor there.)

Hope to see you around! :hi:

[LoveMyCali]

51. I don't get on DU as much as I'd like

but I'm around from time to time.

Rhiannon is the best, I won't say how long we've been friends because we just can't be that old!

I'm a Barkley convert, I absolutely couldn't stand him when he was traded to the Suns (my favorite team) but eventually realized he's not as big a jerk as he tries to make people believe he is.

[Rhiannon12866]

45. Hi, Syrinx! Probably a lot of people would pay to see that debate, LOL!

Charles Barkley is always amusing and he's a pretty bright guy. My friend says that he's a nice guy who pretends to be a jerk, unlike most people who pretend just the opposite.:-)

And you just missed my friend. She signed off at 3:30. But she'll be back. I'm glad that she finally found DU, since she was as devastated as I was after the 2004 election. We used to sit up for half of the night, for weeks after after the election, writing back and forth, wondering how this could have happened. I wouldn't have survived that awful time without the "help and support" forum that was on DU back then, remember? They split GD into two parts, "help and support" and "anger and vitriol," or something like that, LOL! I mostly posted on the former. And my friend had me.;(

And I'd imagine that you could find Charles Barkley's book at the library, since it's sold quite well and I've seen him making the rounds, promoting it.:-)

And I get the RW since my mother is one of them. I think that many of them have a certain amount of anger, and a lot of fear, which the Karl Roves and Sean Hannitys of the world exploit. This has worked for them in the past, so they don't feel the need to change. Rove orchestrated Bush*'s improbable win over Ann Richards in Texas by spreading the rumor that she and her staff were gay.:grr:

So why any gay person would be a Republican makes no sense, as you say, nor any black person. That's how Rove derailed McCain in SC, by his "dirty tricks" phone campaign about John McCain's "black baby." It was just close enough to the truth to work, since his wife had brought home a handicapped child from Bangladesh, and they adopted her. But black Republicans have to be few and far between. I remember that the BET correspondent at the convention said that her viewers didn't just dislike Bush*, but that their hatred of him was palpable...:mad:

And check out the movie. I promise you'll like it. And it is the kind of movie they'd show on Sundance. I used to watch it regularly when Al Franken's radio show was rebroadcast at night, and that's where I saw "Unconstitutional," a great film about the 2000 election shenanigans in Florida, but I haven't tuned in much since they stopped showing Al Franken.:-(

That's cool about your imaginary friend. I had one, too, named Annabel.:D

Good to see you, my friend. I'm usually around...:hi:

[Syrinx]

49. hey Rhiannon!

I think I'm about to fall to sleep. But I must share this about my imaginary friends.

I knew all day that I had two of them. I could remember Mr. Mister. I've been wracking my brain trying to remember the other one.

And I just remembered it.

There was Mr. Mister, who was like a tight-ass businessman or something, but he was nice to me.

And I just remembered the other one. He was named Bebe. A hippie type dude with a beard and long hair and a rainbow shirt. I don't know where my mind came up with that stuff. Maybe Walter Cronkite's reports on what all was going on. :shrug:

This was in the seventies, early. And I swear I'm not making this up! :hi:

[ecstatic]

21. Somehow I don't see him succeeding at that lol

If anything he should relocate now, to a state that is less red, and then he might possibly have a fighting chance.

[Syrinx]

29. somehow your comment doesn't seem to go with your Dean avatar

Does it?

We're supposed to be using a fifty-state strategy.

A sports superstar from Alabama wants to use his celebrity to help the people of his home state.

Why in the heck should he run from a different state? I don't understand the logic.

[ecstatic]

33. i hear ya, but how many black governors do we currently have

in the United States? Blue states are barely willing to give that concept a chance, much less a state like AL.

[Syrinx]

40. I can't think of any black governors that we have now

Maybe I'm forgetting a couple.

I remember Doug Wilder used to be governor of Virginia.

But I can't think of a single one, currently, north or south, blue or red.

However, Alabama ranks #2, in terms of numbers of black elected officials ("BEO's"), just behind Mississippi. I realize that we have a higher percentage of black people down south, but I also realize that a state like California, for example, has, what?, about ten times the population of Alabama?

Among the top five states with the largest number of BEOs, Mississippi (897) and Alabama (731) saw modest increases, while Louisiana (701), Illinois (621), and Georgia (582) experienced slight declines. Most of the growth between 1970 and 2000 occurred in the South, and six states -- Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Illinois, Georgia, and South Carolina -- have each gained more than 500 BEOs during this period.

http://www.unityfirst.com/ufthisweekapril12002.htm

PS, I hope we don't add a black governor this year. Because as far as I know, the only black person running for governor is Ken Blackwell in Ohio, and I can't stand that SOB.

[Syrinx]

50. I forgot about Lynn Swann

I hope he loses too.

And there's a black dem running in some state, but I can't remember which state that is. I hope he wins.

[NJ Democrats]

53. That would be Deval Patrick in MA

Right now he's leading and I think he is going to win.

[Syrinx]

55. that's good news!

Thanks for the information.

[catzies]

23. I want him to convert Karl Malone first. That would convince me he has

the right stuff.

Karl and Charles looked at the same things and Charles saw the light.

I wish Karl would too.

[kentuck]

24. He sounds perfectly qualified to me ...

Have you looked at some of these assholes we have in Washington??

[npincus]

31. "the war in Iraq" is "not important"?

what kind of dumb-ass is he? Sorry, sports fans and admirers.

Gay marriage, yes. Illegal immigration, maybe. But the war in Iraq?

[NewJeffCT]

34. Is he that much less qualified than Arnold?

and, at least we'd have somebody that wasn't afraid to speak his mind.

[hfojvt]

36. Do you mean to say

He's charging into politics?

I bet he flops.

[MoseyWalker]

37. I hope he runs, and I hope he wins big

The war in Iraq is obviously important, but I agree that it is being used, along with many other false, and less obviously important, ideas to distract, confuse and anger people.

He wants to help people in their day to day lives, and that is being forgotten in these days of perpetual warfare against Muslims and gays and flag burners. The social safety net is being dismantled. Not just some holes put in it. It is being dismantled, and any person who runs for office saying he's going to do what it takes to rebuild it gets my vote.

Let's not forget there are issues that people have to deal with other than wars.

[HuskerDU]

38. This is great news!

I heard him criticizing * about nine months ago during a basketball broadcast. I think his transition to the good side has been brewing for quite some time.

This man is very smart, witty, opinionated, and very much respected by a whole lot of people. He would make a terrific governor and could motivate tons of people non-political in nature. The guy has charisma like few others.

Barkley more or less said that the war is based on lies. What more do you want from a potential governor? This is the kind of guy who can bring outsiders into our camp and help turn the political tide in this country. I say go Chuck go!

[pitohui]

43. he ain't no dumberer than * or ahnold

and at least he speaks english, which those two struggle with!

why the heck not? go for it, i think it would be entertaining if naught else

[LoveMyCali]

52. Charles isn't dumb at all

if anything he may be a bit naive as to the political process and lacking a bit in the diplomacy department but his heart seems to be in the right place. Alabama could do worse.

[Warren DeMontague]

47. I like the Round Mound of Rebound.

Good for him!

[Syrinx]

48. funny nickname at least

I'd like him to get in. "Round Mound Of Rebound" makes me smile. That's better than most politics in the last few years.

[NJ Democrats]

54. Barkley for Gov!

Although it will likely be in 2014 due to rescidency issues.

[SensibleAmerican]

56. Yeah, cuz Alabama's gonna elect a black as their governor

A sad but true fact.