Former basketball star Charles Barkley says he definitely plans to run for governor of Alabama some day, but he wants no help from Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.
The New York Post reports Barkley says in an upcoming Playboy magazine interview: “I don’t believe in them. They always play the race card, and you can’t always play the race card. Sometimes the race card is needed, but not in every situation. We have to hold blacks more accountable for their actions.”
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Its offical. Saw it on CNN with Wolf B. He’s going to run in 2014 and now he’s going to support obama in the race. Which is funny because he’s a republican.
[quote]His outspoken and aggressive play, however, also caused a few scandals; notoriously a fight with Detroit Pistons center Bill Laimbeer in 1990, an event which drew record fines, and the infamous spitting incident. . .
In March 1991, during an overtime game in New Jersey, a courtside heckler had been yelling racial epithets throughout the game at Barkley. Upset by the heckler’s remarks, Barkley turned to spit at him, but, as he later described, did not “get enough foam”, missed and mistakenly spat on a young girl. . .
Barkley was regarded as one of the most controversial, outspoken and dominating players in the history of basketball. . .
His larger than life persona and confrontational mannerisms often led to technical fouls and fines and sometimes gave rise to national controversy, such as when he was featured in ads that rejected pro athletes as role models and declared, “I am not a role model.”
. . . Barkley was frequently fined for on-court fights with NBA players. . . He was also equally confrontational off the court. He was arrested for breaking a man’s nose during a fight after a game with the Milwaukee Bucks and also for throwing a man through a plate-glass window. . .[/quote] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Barkley
I hope he wins. Then maybe he’ll be too busy to sit in the booth and make dumb comments before basketball games. Being Alabama, they may even let him wear that dumb fishing hat while in office.
well I guess it’s better than him being picked up for a DUI. Or dogfighting. Or killing the mother of his kids. Or killing people. Or selling drugs. Or taking drugs.
I’ve heard him interviewed on his political views before, and pretty much everything he said could have been taken straight from a Democratic party press release.
I just saw him on CNN again this morning and he made it very clear where he stood – saying that there was no question that he will vote for the Democrat no matter who they nominate.
According to this AP story, he considers himself to be an independent, but it’s pretty clear that he’s an independent who leans toward the Democrats.
Democrat, independent, liberal, “progressive”, call him what you want. But the one thing he’s not is a Republican.
I’ve heard him interviewed on his political views before, and pretty much everything he said could have been taken straight from a Democratic party press release.
I just saw him on CNN again this morning and he made it very clear where he stood – saying that there was no question that he will vote for the Democrat no matter who they nominate.
According to this AP story, he considers himself to be an independent, but it’s pretty clear that he’s an independent who leans toward the Democrats.
Democrat, independent, liberal, “progressive”, call him what you want. But the one thing he’s not is a Republican. [/quote]
[quote]Barkley spoke for many years of his Republican Party affiliation. In 1995, he considered running as a Republican candidate for Alabama’s governorship in the 1998 election.[50] However, in 2006, he altered his political stance and stated:
[color=darkred]I was a Republican[/color] until they lost their minds, "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.[51]
At a July 2006 meeting of the Southern Regional Conference of the National School Boards Association in Destin, Florida, Barkley lent credence to the idea of running for Governor of Alabama, stating:
I'm serious. 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... 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.[52]
In September 2006, Barkley once again reiterated his desire to run for Governor. He noted, “I can’t run until 2014…I have to live there for seven years, so I’m looking for a house there as we speak.”[53] In September 2007, during a broadcast on Monday Night Football, Barkley announced that he bought a house in Alabama to satisfy residency requirements for a 2014 campaign for governor. In addition, Barkley declared himself an Independent and not Democratic as previously reported. “The Republicans are full of it,” Barkley said, “The Democrats are a little less full of it.”[53][/quote]
[quote]Off the court, Barkley continued to evolve. He entered a Republican makeover phase. His worldview began to mature; he became more focused on class and less virulent on race. He also grew close to Rush Limbaugh and Dan Quayle (a frequent golf partner), dined with Clarence Thomas and endorsed Steve Forbes in the presidential primary. Though exit polls showed that his imprimatur sealed Forbes’ primary win in Arizona in 1996, Barkley didn’t necessarily sign on to any particular ideology.
He’s become impossible to pigeonhole. He regularly lambastes liberalism, to the proud applause of Limbaugh and Quayle; two years ago, he told me, “Welfare gave the black man an inferiority complex. They gave us some fish instead of teaching us how to fish.” In the next breath, though, he’s liable to skewer 1994’s Republican revolution as “mean-spirited” and denounce Pat Buchanan as a “neo-Nazi.” A junkie of CNN’s political gabfest “Crossfire,” Barkley became convinced, after reading Jonathan Kozol’s “Savage Inequalities,” that the way we fund public schools – through local property taxes – is designed to produce good schools in good neighborhoods and run-down schools in run-down areas. “My daughter goes to a private school because I can afford it,” he once told me, giving voice to his natural inclination toward populism. “But shouldn’t everyone have great education available to them?”[/quote]
You’ve shown that he was reported to be a Republican in the past. It’s also been reported that he was a Democrat in the past.
It’s has also been reported that he was an Independent, who favored the Democrats, in the past.
It’s also been reported (on CNN as of today, to bring things to the present) that his current voting philosophy is that he will vote for the Democratic candidate no matter who that is.
So I guess it’s been shown that Charles seems comfortable agreeing with whatever party he feels like at the moment.
As of 8am this morning, he felt like a Democrat, just as he did in the AP interview I linked to, and just as he has in all the other interviews I’ve hear him respond to.
So where does he really stand? I guess none of us knows. I’ve certainly heard far more from him to indicate that he stands closer to the Democratic party (see the quotes I linked to in my previous post), but who really knows.
I guess that leads us back to my original question: Given that he has said so many contradictory things, and given that as of 8:00am this morning he said he was firmly in support of the Democrats come what may… Why do you think he is a Republican?
It’s also been reported (on CNN as of today, to bring things to the present) that his current voting philosophy is that he will vote for the Democratic candidate no matter who that is.
[/quote]
Truth be told, I wouldn’t rely on CNN to much for factual information, as of late. they have been getting busted for posting wrong info, i.e. delegate count and so forth.
It’s also been reported (on CNN as of today, to bring things to the present) that his current voting philosophy is that he will vote for the Democratic candidate no matter who that is.
[/quote]
Truth be told, I wouldn’t rely on CNN to much for factual information, as of late. they have been getting busted for posting wrong info, i.e. delegate count and so forth.[/quote]
What about falsifying interview transcripts? Getting a delegate count wrong isn’t quite the same thing, is it?
