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POLITICS ON THE HUDSON

Richard Gere for Congress? His publicist responds

Joseph Spector
Albany Bureau
No, Richard Gere won't run for Congress.

ALBANY — So much for "Gere 2018" signs around the Hudson Valley.

Richard Gere, the popular actor and Westchester County resident, is not interested in running for Congress, and speculation to the contrary is "not true," his publicist Alan Nierob said Tuesday.

"He is not considering a run for Congress," Nierob said in an email to the USA Today Network's Albany Bureau.

The local political world was abuzz last week when some rumors surfaced that the Pretty Woman star might be interested in running for the 18th Congressional District seat if Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney wins a Democratic primary for attorney general next month.

Maloney, D-Cold Spring, Putnam County, is one of four Democratic candidates running in the Sept. 13 primary.

So maybe if Maloney wins, the thought was Gere, who lives in Maloney's district in Bedford, could step in.

"It’s whispered about down here. Where it started, nobody knows,"  Middletown Mayor Joseph DeStefano said Friday.

But other local leaders said they were unaware of the rumor and had no conversations with Gere, who own a local bed and breakfast and has been politically active.

The idea that Gere might be the latest Hollywood star to consider politics hasn't sat well with him in the past, either.

Yahoo! Entertainment pointed out that Gere last year told CNN that politics is not for him.

“There’s not even a speck of me that goes, ‘Boy, I’d really want to be a politician,” Gere told CNN. “I have no interest. None. Zero.”

If Maloney loses the primary for attorney general, he will run for re-election to his congressional seat, which stretches across Westchester, Dutchess, Putnam and Orange counties.

The Republican candidate is James O'Donnell, a former police officer.

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