Matthew McConaughey has announced that he is seriously considering a candidate for governor of Texas a year before the state election.
The actor revealed his intention on Wednesday in a recent episode of Crime Stoppers from Houston’s The Balanced Voice podcast. He told the host, Rania Mankarious, that the candidate for governor was a ‘real consideration’.
“I’m looking again, what’s my leadership role?” he said. ‘Because I think I have some things to learn and share, and what’s my role? What is my category in my next life chapter? ‘
If McConaughey starts a government campaign, he will face Greg Abbott, a Republican who is eligible for re-election.
This is not the first time the 51-year-old Oscar winner has indicated the idea. When Conservative radio presenter Hugh Hewitt was asked in November 2020 whether he would consider a bid, he replied: “It’s more to the people than I am.” He called the politics a ‘broken business’ and said it would only attract more interest if it ‘redefined the goal’.
McConaughey’s political affiliation is unknown, and many online speculate whether he would choose him as a Republican or a Democrat. Although there is no clear indication of which side he is falling from, his comments from the past on issues such as gun violence, masks and the defense of the police can provide clarity.
In October, McConaughey was invited to the Joe Rogan Experience, the popular podcast, where he discussed, among other things, being a Christian in Hollywood and disregarding the police. He said some Hollywood liberals are too far left.
Speaking about his religion, he said: ‘Some people in our industry, not all of them, there are some who have gone left so far … who have gone to the illiberal left so far, who are up to 50% of the world. need the empathy that the liberals have … To marry them out of wedlock because they say they are a believer is just as arrogant and hypocritical to me in some ways. ‘
When asked about the police deflection, McConaughey answered thoroughly about how he would try to improve relations between the police and the community. “It’s almost as if it needed to be renamed, because ‘defund’ does not sound like there is money allocated to different areas to handle police exercises,” he said.
“The community and the police need to get back together, and the community needs to say, ‘This is what’s unfair. Here’s how I feel it’s unfair as a black man or a colored person or whatever the situation is. “Here is my problem with my relationship with you as a police officer,” he continued.
McConaughey said his life practice was to come together in the middle and make a compromise, which is clear from his other political views. “The two sides talked,” he said during the press tour for the movie White Boy Rick. ‘Hey, where can we go over here? Do you find a compromise to the benefit of us all? ‘
The actor expressed the ‘epidemic’ of gun violence in 2018 and took a different stance than his more progressive colleagues. He expressed concern that the march for our lives, organized after the shooting at Parkland High School, would be “hijacked” by an anti-gun movement, saying the march was for a “legitimate, fair and responsible gun ownership” – but against assault rifles against unlimited magazines and for following up the regulations ”.
Early in the pandemic, McConaughey filmed pro-mask PSAs and interviewed Dr. Anthony Fauci on Instagram. In an interview with Jesse Will for Men’s Journal, he laments how politicized masked wear was on both sides of the spectrum. ‘It turned out that there was no plan. “Our leaders have been scrambling,” he said.
In the same interview, he touched on the possible message of a hypothetical campaign – not the “Make America good, good, good again” that many of his fans joked about, but a more serious “meet me in the middle” I challenge you out “. The message follows the same philosophy as his bestselling autobiography, Greenlights: “In a crisis, I found that a good plan is to first recognize the problem, then stabilize the situation, organize the response, and then respond. “
Regardless of his political commitment, McConaughey’s love for the Lone Star State is evident in his many philanthropic projects through his foundation, the Just Keep Livin ‘Organization. When its home state was hit by a severe winter storm in February, McConaughey offered a virtual benefit through his foundation to provide Texans with the “essentials”.