By April Drew

MALACHY McCourt is back on stage with more dramatics and dialogue, but this time the stage is slightly bigger and the audience much larger.

McCourt is very serious about his bid for governor of New York as the candidate of the Green Party, and at the same time is humorous about the race.

"Don't waste your vote, give it to me,” McCourt said during an interview with the Irish Voice. “I tell people I'm standing for governor, not running. Spitzer and Faso are running which will make them runners up, and I'll still be standing.”

Actor and author and now contender for highest office in the state, McCourt recently turned 75. He was born in Brooklyn but grew up in Limerick.

McCourt, younger brother of best-selling author Frank McCourt, is typically known for reciting poetry in quaint city theatres and writing books like A Monk Swimming. So why did a longstanding Democrat (he campaigned for John Kerry for president) decide to run for governor?

It was a female caller to the WBAI radio station in New York that presented the challenge to him.

“She called up and said I'd been doing a lot of talking about these corrupt politicians, so why did I not do something about it? I thought I was doing something by talking.”

McCourt gave it some thought, and made the decision to jump into the race.

While his opponents, heavily favored Democratic candidate Eliot Spitzer and longshot Republican nominee John Faso, conduct television debates and spend millions on advertising, McCourt journeys the state with his show “You Don't Have to Be Irish to Vote for Me,” 90 minutes of prose and songs guaranteed to offend politicians. The Green’s lieutenant governor candidate Alison Duncan accompanies him.

McCourt would like the opportunity to participate in a television debate, but organizers have denied his requests.

“They won't let me into a debate,” says McCourt. Describing Spitzer and Faso's debate on television last week, McCourt said he felt like he was watching “two old soviet Communists talking about love songs.”

The issues McCourt supports are unlike those of his Republican and Democrat opponents. One of his greater recommendations is to demilitarize the National Guard.

“I believe strongly in bringing the National Guard home where they belong. Those other clowns won't do that,” cries McCourt. He would consider using the money spent on the war in Iraq to provide free college tuition to all.

McCourt also supports free college education, making an offense of smoking near children, upgrading teachers’ pay, putting an end to the death penalty and nuclear energy programs, standardizing sugar and nicotine as controlled substances and enforcing rent control in New York City.

“It is absolutely disgraceful. The landlords who bought these corrupt politicians are charging these crazy rents,” he says.

He says Spitzer isn't going to do anything about it because his family is in the real estate business, and “that other fella, if he was hung for his level of intelligence he would die peacefully.”

So has life changed much for McCourt since his transition from arts into politics?

“Any day above ground is a good day, but I do find politics fierce invasive,” says McCourt. He says that his private life has disappeared and politicians are required to be humorous and gracious at all times. However, his political experience to date has proved that people can be very supportive and kind.

“People are wonderful. I only met with one negative lad a while back. He had a face like a New York manhole cover. He shouted across the street to me, 'Whatever you’re against I'm for,' so I shouted back to him, 'What about child abuse?’”

Latest polls show McCourt with 5% of the vote, lagging way behind front runner Spitzer and Faso.

“It's great isn't it that we are third? There is no doubt in my mind that we will get the 50,000 votes needed to participate,” says McCourt, mindful that the party needs at least 50,000 votes to stay on the ballot in future elections. “Our campaign has spent less than $10,000, and we're running third.”

When people ask McCourt what the likelihood is of him replacing Governor George Pataki, he always tells them the same thing.

“I will win if you go out and vote for me,” he says. “I have the same qualifications as those other two. None of us have ever been governor before and that makes me as good as them.”