Alec Baldwin is considering a run for New York City mayor now that Rep. Anthony Weiner may pull out of the race due to the Weinergate-Twitter photo scandal, according to a new report.
“Alec said, ‘Hey, maybe this changes the race. The dynamics have shifted,’” a Baldwin pal told iPad newspaper The Daily. “The Democrats need a high-profile candidate, and Alec can fill that bill.”
“I wouldn’t rule it out,” his rep, Matthew Hiltzik tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Baldwin, an active Democrat, has long mulled going into politics. He’s also announced his last year on 30 Rock will be 2012, which would free up his schedule ahead of the 2013 mayoral elections.
In January, Baldwin told CNN’s Eliot Spitzer that he was “very interested” in running for office — only if he could do it in New York City.
“I do believe that people want to believe that someone who deeply cares about the middle class … would like to seek public office,” Baldwin said.
In 2008, he said on 60 Minutes that politics could be his post-acting career: “There’s no age limit on running for office, to a degree… [It’s] something I might do, one day.”
As early as 1997, Baldwin — who is now 53 — began talking about entering politics as he ages.
“Is this something that I want to do? Yes,” he said in a New York magazine cover story. “The men and women that run the world are in their 50s. It takes time to build that kind of thing. I’m 39.”
