Governor Charles Barkley?

Transcript from Charles Barkley interview with CNN's Campbell Brown

Brown: Talk to me a little bit about your own political aspirations. You said in the past that you want to go back to Alabama. That is home for you.

Barkley: Alabama needs a lot of help. You know Campbell, the reason I have become really pro-active -- and to be honest with you I never really got involved with politics until John Kerry and John Edwards last time. And the reason I'm supporting the Democratic Party [is] no more than I like Barack. I think he is a friend of mine. I think he is a wonderful, wonderful person. The reason I voted for John Kerry last time and have been more out there this time, I look at the -- it's really about rich people versus poor people and I think it is a travesty what they have done to poor people in this country. And lets be realistic, it doesn't, George Bush -- I don't care. It's not going to have any effect realistically on my life who the president is. The reason I am supporting the Democratic Party, I think it is a bona fide tragedy what has happened to poor people in this country and the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than it has ever been. You got this bailout situation, I just think it's a travesty.

Brown: So are you going to run for governor?

Barkley: I plan on it in 2014.

Brown: You are serious.

Barkley: I am, I can't screw up Alabama.

Brown: There is no place to go but up in your view?

Barkley: We are number 48 in everything and Arkansas and Mississippi aren't going anywhere.

Brown: And the top priority for you would be education?

Barkley: All the way education, the public school system in this country is the worst it has ever been and what that does is that hurts crime, it hurts the judicial system. You know if you don't give people education and hope, they become criminals. They get involved in drugs. So we have got to fix the public school system. I think we need to make these neighborhoods safer. And the third thing, you have got to give people economic opportunity. America for far too long has a small group of people who have got all the money and then we got a bunch of poor people who have no money. And because we have killed the public school system they can't get the education to make money and that is just not right.