# Al Sharpton for President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 13, 2002, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-sharpton-for-president/142565 "2002-12-13T18:44:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![sunstone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunstone/32/3372_2.png) [@sunstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunstone)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-sharpton-for-president/142565/21 "2002-12-20T04:14:48Z")
I hope Sharpton doesn’t become a candidate. In my opinion, he is an opportunistic political hack. ---
**Author:** ![barton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@barton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-sharpton-for-president/142565/22 "2002-12-20T06:03:11Z")
His status as a reverend makes him wholly unsuited to leading a nation with a strong separation of church 'n state tradition. He’s a race-baiting bastard, too, but the above reason is more worrisome. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-sharpton-for-president/142565/23 "2002-12-20T06:09:48Z")
Actually the fire was in Harlem: [http://www.jewishpost.com/jpn201d.html](http://www.jewishpost.com/jpn201d.html) Granted, this is a sort of biased source, but it’s essentially correct. Eight people died, horribly, because some idiot took Sharpton seriously. I mean this sincerely, as someone who’s read a lot of profiles of Sharpton that show he is often sinceere and much more intelligent and principled than he looks shouing into a megaphone: If this and Tawana Brawley had happened to a white politician, does anyone think he’d ever have been heard from again? I mean, look at the flak Kennedy takes for Chappaquiddick, which was just an accident. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-sharpton-for-president/142565.md?page=1)