John Kerry was at the Tour de France today to watch Lance Armstrong. He said he wants Lance to run for Texas Governor and then made some boring half-assed jokes.
Armstrong said he would probably run for political office after he retires from biking, but he is a declared Republican (with a Communist girlfriend) so John Kerry might be barking up the wrong tree. If it was a Democratic candidacy, no doubt he would do a lot better in fundraising and overall results than Chris Bell.
I did a search on him and various words like Democrat and Republican and politics in the
Houston Chronicle and most of the matches were somewhat peripheral, like politicians wanting to be seen with him (for example he was a guest at Geoge Bush's first state dinner). Kirk Watson, form mayor of Austin and Democrat candidate for Texas Attorney General in 2000, is (was?) a member of the board of Armstrong's foundation, but is also a survivor of testicular cancer. In 2003, when Friedman was musing about running for Governor he said that he would probably run unless Willie Nelson or Lance Armstrong did. In an interview earlier this month, Armstrong was asked if he was interested in getting into politics, he said that the press conferences were his least favorite part of bicycle racing, so why would he want a job that would require a press conference every day.
