Alec Baldwin: Yes, I'll Run for New York Mayor, But Not in 2013

Reporting by UsMagazine

Mayor Baldwin?

It could happen. It could happen. In a new interview with The New York Times, Alec Baldwin confirms that he'd love to run for mayor of New York.

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But Baldwin, 53, says he can't run in the next 2013 election because he's under contract to shoot the next season of "30 Rock," which wraps in April 2012, with additional future appearance also slated. Plus, in fall 2012, he plans to enroll in a master's program in politics and government at a not-yet-chosen school to "help me better understand what the fiscal imperatives of that job are," he explains.

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He's got a lot to learn, the Emmy winner admitted to the Times. "What's the reality of the city unions, of contracts, agreements, teachers, infrastructure, decentralizing, everything? And utilities, Con Ed, the MTA -- how does it all work?"

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Baldwin has other changes afoot too. The longtime resident of the Upper West Side ("It is more real. There's old people, it's ethnic and it's economically mixed.") tells the Times he's set to move downtown in order to be closer to his girlfriend, Hilaria Thomas, a 28-year-old yoga teacher.

Is Baldwin worried that his own celebrity scandals -- his messy split with wife Kim Basinger and the infamous "pig" voicemail he left for daughter Ireland -- will hamper his mayoral race?

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"What I do for a living has provided people with an almost bottomless container of video clips of me doing the most asinine things," he admitted.

"I am someone who is fully prepared for the fact that I could go into this and do it and completely have my ass kicked," he added. "I could throw a party and no one could come. And it would be this staggering lesson for me."

Keep reading for a list of other famous names who have set their eyes on politics.