Matthew McConaughey says he is giving “true consideration” to a run for Texas governor. During a recent appearance on The Balanced Voice podcast, the actor and Lincoln luxury car spokesman took a more serious stance toward entering the political fray than in the past.
The discussion about his political future followed a spiel about carrying on life lessons to the next generation. Host Rania Mankarious asked whether his next leadership role could be a gubernatorial run, to which McConaughey replied, “It’s a true consideration.”
“I’m looking into now, what is my leadership role?” he said. “Because I do think I have some things to teach and share, and what is my role? What’s my category in my next chapter of life that I’m going into?”
McConaughey considers his political views “aggressively centrist,” and he criticized both the left and right during an appearance on Russell Brand’s podcast back in December.
“There are a lot (of people) on that illiberal left that absolutely condescend, patronize, and are arrogant towards that other 50 percent,” he said, before taking conservatives to task for denying Biden’s election into office. “Now you’ve got the right that’s in denial, because their side has fake news.”
He continued by advocating for the value of meeting in the middle:
“But then they can’t help themselves; at the very end of it they go, ‘So we don’t let those criminal bastards get back in office!’ You’re like, ‘No, don’t say the last part! You lost 50% of your audience.’ That’s why 50% of the nation looks at us in Hollywood going, ‘Another celebrity over there, West Coasters and the elites in the Northeast. That’s what you all say.’ Even from a sales point of view, don’t tab that ‘gotcha’ on the end, and then your audience is twice as big. And you’re getting what you want… you’re getting two times as much if you just didn’t tab on that little stick it to ’em at the end. The left is gonna have to understand the science of the values of meet you in the middle.”
In November 2020, McConaughey responded to a question about running for governor from conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt by saying “it would be up to the people.” He added, “I would say this. Look, politics seems to be a broken business to me right now. And when politics redefines its purpose, I could be a hell of a lot more interested.”
The Academy Award winner later told Stephen Colbert he had “no plans” to run for governor, with the same caveat. Apparently, something has changed over the past few months.
Current Texas governor Greg Abbott is up for reelection next year.
