Glenn Beck: 'Zero' interest in being president

From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON — A day after he led a large rally near the Lincoln Memorial, conservative television host Glenn Beck said he had no interest in running for president.

"Not a chance," Beck told Fox News Sunday, the morning after he wrapped up a rally that drew tens of thousands of supporters to Washington.

In an interview with Fox host Chris Wallace, the TV and radio personality shrugged when Wallace asked Beck if the rally augured a 2012 political alliance with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who headlined the event along with him.

"I don't know what Sarah's doing, (but) I have no desire to be president of the United States, zero desire," Beck said. "I don't think that I would be electable."

Beck didn't offer an endorsement to Palin, either, saying: "I'd like to find (a presidential candidate) one with some honor and integrity, I haven't seen them yet, but they'll show up."

The rally was a "Tea Party"-fueled phenomenon, a hybrid Christian revival meeting and conservative political rally, with the crowd stretching from the steps of the memorial, past the Reflecting Pool, to the edge of the Washington Monument.

"Something beyond imagination is happening," Beck told a crowd that stretched across the National Mall. "America begins today to turn back to God."

The event, called "Restoring Honor," was billed as a non-political tribute to the nation's troops, and the crowd was packed with people wearing American flag and military t-shirts.

James Davis, 52, organized three buses that brought 157 Westchester County, N.Y., residents to the rally. They congregated at 3 a.m. Saturday to make the pilgrimage. "It was a really good, moving experience," the Internet developer from Pelham said after the rally. "It's good to know we're not alone."

Busloads of Beck supporters from across the country were brought together by members of the Tea Party, anti-immigration groups and other organizations that generally support conservative political candidates and oppose President Obama's policies.

"We're trying to get across that we don't like what's happening to our government," said Carole Lennon of Valencia, Pa., who came with 900 fellow Tea Party members from the Pittsburgh area. "The Democratic elite in Washington — they don't understand what the people want."

The three-hour rally, held at the site of and on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech on racial equality, featured gospel singers, military heroes and a few politicians, including Palin.

She told the crowd she was asked to speak not as a politician but as "something much more … the mother of a soldier and I am proud of that distinction." Her son Track, 20, served in Iraq for a year.

Palin also praised the crowd for "knowing never to retreat," a comment that Fredricksburg, Va., landscape designer Mac Drane said he thought was inappropriate for the event.

Drane, who said he's a big Beck supporter, said he came to the rally to support the troops."It annoys me that she gets off-message and says something political," he said. "I don't think the politics is important in this."

Many others, however, said they were there because they're concerned about the deficit, high taxes, the health-care overhaul and elements of Obama's agenda that they said threaten the economy and future generations.

Scott Lawrence, 39, a family doctor from Detroit Lakes, Minn., flew in with his 10-year-old daughter, Grace. He said he's "worried about the spending that's going on that we can't sustain."

James Queen, a truck driver and Tea Party organizer from Jonesborough, Tenn., said he came to support the nation's troops, though he believes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are both unconstitutional.

He defended Beck's decision to hold his rally on the anniversary of King's speech.

Some civil rights groups, including the National Urban League, called it inappropriate.

"It ain't nothing about hijacking his day," Queen said. "It's a good thing. I wish Al Sharpton and them would come join us."

Sharpton held his own rally nearby and Dubar High School, once a symbol of segregation in the city, and was marching after Beck's rally with his supporters to the site of a planned memorial to King near the Lincoln Memorial.

He said African-Americans have made progress in the United States since King's speech but "just because we got through the storm doesn't mean we've arrived."

Louis Fields, 59, of Baltimore, said he supports the right of both groups to have rallies on King's speech anniversary. "King's speech is what paved the way for Sharpton, Beck and Palin to be here," Fields said.

At the Beck rally, "most of the people I see are white but that doesn't mean they are racist," he said. Still, "it seems they don't have a message that attracts people outside of the Caucasion race."

Patrick Humphries, 50, of Bedford, Mass., said he disagreed with critics that have dubbed the Tea Party as a band of racists. "There's no racism involved. We disagree with Obama's politics — not that a black man was elected."

Humphries, a member of the greater Boston Tea Party, said Martin Luther King's message is not at odds with the rally today. "King was about having the people he was representing raise themselves. He wasn't looking for handouts and he was a religious man. I don't think this contradicts his message at all. I think he would appreciate the concept of restoring honor to the country because he was an honorable man."

Beck, a Fox News and radio talk-show host, included numerous references to King during the rally and showed some video clips from King's speech.

Answering critics in the days before the rally, Beck said he had no idea it was the King speech anniversary when he booked the site, but he believed the match-up was "divine providence."

Carol Wilson, 65, a Ridgecrest, Calif., real estate agent who flew east on her own to attend the rally, said she was "called from God to come here because our country needs to be restored to our founding principles: belief in God, honor and integrity."

Thomas Richards, 39, a Raleigh, N.C., firefighter said he wanted to come because conservatives "have to do more than vote."

This fall's congressional elections were on his mind, though, and his message to the members of Congress responsible for what he called "out-of-control" spending: "Novermber's coming. I don't think anyone can say it any other way."

The rally, which ran nearly an hour past its 1 p.m. end time, was largely peaceful. At Beck's request, there were very few signs, and most people kept quiet as he spoke. Crowd members did start booing, though, when a young man trailed by several people with video cameras running walked through the crowd carrying a sign that read: "Glenn Beck is lying to us for profit."

Contributing: Mimi Hall; Jessica Durando; Elizabeth Bewley; Politico; Ledyard King of the Gannett Washington Bureau.

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