Consumer advocate Clark Howard mulls run for mayor, governor

By The Associated Press

Posted 12:10PM on Saturday, July 14, 2007

Consumer guru Clark Howard is famously cheap.He abhors bottled water and bought his wife a diamond ring at Costco. Lunch with a reporter takes place in a booth at Wendy's. Lore about Howard's penny-pinching is about as plentiful in Atlanta as streets named Peachtree. But perhaps no story tops the $1 suit.The popular radio show host and author had dropped his pregnant wife off at a restaurant for dinner and was searching for free parking (naturally) when he stumbled upon a thrift store. On a rack outside was a suit that fit perfectly and cost just a buck. The prized possession still hangs in the closet of his seven-bedroom house in a posh Atlanta neighborhood.Howard, 52, has built a mini media empire making frugal fashionable. There's the books, the television appearances, the newspaper column and the radio show, which reaches 3.5 million listeners a week across the country. His "gee whiz" delivery has a populist everyman quality.Now he's mulling a career change that could give him a new kind of bully pulpit.Howard is considering a run for mayor of Atlanta in 2009, or maybe even a run for governor of Georgia in 2010."Mayor is a possibility and it's possible I could also do something outrageous, like run for governor," Howard told The Associated Press. "I've been hearing from a lot of people telling me to go ahead and run."Still, he puts his odds of running at about one in three, saying that he's concerned about giving up his successful consumer gig and the strain a campaign would place on his family. Howard has two young children and a teenage daughter from his first marriage.But politics clearly get his juices flowing. He considered running for mayor of Atlanta in 1997, and still requires no prompting to launch into a detailed plan on how to help ease the city's notoriously tangled traffic.Part of his reluctance, he said, is because he feels that his radio show is helping regular folks, perhaps more than the bureaucracy of elected office would allow him."What I do now is unambiguous," Howard said. "We've got a freight train moving down the tracks that helps people everyday."Howard said he expects to decide next summer. If he runs, it would mean the end of his show in either Atlanta or Georgia due to federal equal time rules.During a recent broadcast at WSB studios in Atlanta, Howard rails against the U.S. Supreme Court for a decision that he says legalizes price fixing. A woman who is being harassed by the bank of her dead father receives an earful on how to get the creditor off her back. He is thrilled when a man calls asking about the best options to save money, until he discovers the caller has credit card debt."Pay that off first," he insists.He is at home in the radio studio, but it's not a place he ever expected he'd be.Mesmerized by politics from the age of six, his hero while growing up in Atlanta during the waning days of segregation was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.Howard graduated from American University in Washington D.C., attending school at night while holding down a job at the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the day.He was getting a government degree that was supposed to prepare him to be a city manager but the bureaucracy at HUD left him "scarred." He took a job instead at IBM and earned a master's in business.After moving back to Atlanta, Howard was a social worker and worked for Literacy Action, a nonprofit organization that taught adults how to read. He founded an employment boot camp there, but he always had an entrepreneurial streak.In 1981, at the age of 25 he opened his own travel agency in Atlanta just as airlines deregulated. He ended up with one of the largest independent travel chains in Georgia. Six years later he was bought out by an Ohio-based chain and the new company had no role for Howard."I was really hurt. Not hurt enough not to sell because the money was too good," he said.So, at age 31, he retired.That changed in the fall of 1987 when he got a frantic call from WGST radio station. A guest had canceled _ could he fill in and talk about travel? He became a regular and the following year was asked to host the show. His plainspoken style became a hit and soon afterward he took over a show that included advice about finances.Howard was hired away by WSB, which also offered him a deal to make television appearances. The Clark Howard empire was born.As a political figure, Howard is hard to pin down.He's given money to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a liberal Democrat, and U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, a conservative Republican.He talks on his show about decriminalizing drugs, because the current drug war isn't working. He bemoans the problems that would result from government-run health care. He used the airwaves to label former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell a crook. Campbell is now in prison on charges of tax evasion.In the largely conservative realm of talk radio, Howard calls himself "Switzerland."Yet he was a popular draw at the recent Sean Hannity "Freedom Concert" that drew the conservative faithful. He fit in wearing his Georgia State Defense Force uniform and helping with recruitment efforts for the volunteer organization, akin to the National Guard.Howard says if he runs it would be as an independent. His favorite politician is California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who Howard believes is an independent at heart.So would Howard bring his notoriously frugal touch to government?Yes, he says, but in increments.He says that the city of Atlanta and the board of education have been job programs for too long."But do you go into office on the first day and start firing people? Not if you're smart you don't," he said. "But you set the direction and the tone."Atlanta is a city known for its complicated racial politics. Howard is white in a city where the last non-black mayor was Sam Massell some 34 years ago. Like Massell, Howard is also Jewish.State Rep. Bob Holmes, former director of Clark-Atlanta University's Southern Center for Studies in Public Policy, said the city's white population is exploding, a demographic shift that could work in Howard's favor."I think he would be a viable candidate. This city has really embraced nontraditional candidates who come from outside of politics," Holmes said."I think he would have that kind of appeal like Barack Obama, of being a fresh face."Howard said he'd have to confront the race issue head on."When I briefly entertained running in 1997 my tentative campaign slogan was: 'Beyond black and white, it's all about the green,'" he said. "And I think it's as true today as it was 10 years ago."_____On The Net:HASH(0x2df2cc4)