WASHINGTON — All right, all right already. If you’re running for Texas governor, Matthew McConaughey, what do you stand for?

As the Oscar-winning film star toys with jumping into the race, he’s rehearsing lines about why he refuses to reveal his stance on just about any hot button issue or policy challenge facing the state, all the while casting himself as a centrist in tune with the “sleeping giant” in the middle of the electorate that shuns extremism and wants to “salvage” American democracy.

“What the hell is politics? Before we start saying, hey, this is where I stand,” which would alienate half of voters, “let’s answer these other questions about purpose of democracy,” he said Thursday on New York Times Opinion’s Sway podcast, calling politics “a bag of rats” that a big part of him wants to avoid while his inner “philosopher-poet-statesman” wants to give it a try.

It’s colorful and intriguing — inspiring, even, to moderates and movie buffs. And vague enough to ensure the star of Interstellar, Dallas Buyers Club and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days remains a blank slate politically.

No one even knows whether he’d run in the Democratic primary, where he’d likely face former El Paso congressman Beto O’Rourke, or in the Republican primary against Gov. Greg Abbott, or take a third-party path.

“As a human being, as an actor, I absolutely like Matthew McConaughey. I mean, how do you not?” said Andi Turner, legislative director at the Texas State Rifle Association, which scored a slew of wins for gun owners at the Legislature this year. “But I don’t know what he stands for at all. And I don’t think anybody does.”

Polls show McConaughey leading Abbott, a fellow Longhorn, in a hypothetical matchup. By a lot. But pick a topic, especially if it’s controversial, he probably hasn’t addressed it — taxes, gun rights, policing, voting rights, criminal justice, border security, immigration.

There are two issues he’s taken a stance on, distancing himself from Abbott forcefully: mask mandates and abortion rights.

Mask mandate

Abbott endured huge blowback from conservatives when he mandated masks in summer 2020, in the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak, long before vaccines came along.

Since then he has banned mask mandates, and tussled with mayors and county officials who tried to impose them locally.

For McConaughey, requiring face coverings at the height of a pandemic should be a no-brainer.

“No one likes being told what to do. We are all more afraid of the word ‘mandate’ than we were the damn mask,” he told Sway. “I think our pride trumped and stamped down our honor there. I think we chose privilege over principle. And this … small investment we’re asking everyone to have for long-term freedom, we should have taken. I would have said, mandate masks.”

SB 8/abortion

McConaughey denounces Senate Bill 8, the restrictive abortion law that took effect Sept. 1 with Abbott’s signature.

A federal judge in Austin halted implementation Wednesday night, noting its transparent conflict with Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that recognized a right to abortion until a fetus is viable outside the womb, now about 22 to 24 weeks.

SB 8 bans abortion as early as six weeks, once a fetal heartbeat is detected. To avoid violating legal strictures on government enforcement of an unconstitutional restriction, it outsources enforcement to private individuals, offering $10,000 awards for successful lawsuits against doctors or anyone who in any way “aids or abets” termination of a banned pregnancy.

“Six weeks. Six weeks?” McConaughey said on Sway.

He called the law “juvenile in its implementation. … Like, hey, we’ll pay for bounties if you call in and see somebody going in” to an abortion clinic.

And he cited the lack of exception for pregnancies that result from rape or incest.

“I got a problem with that,” he said.

Still, he insisted that “I’m not going to come out and tell you right now on this show, here’s where I stand on abortion.”

Psychedelics

He’s open to legalization of psychedelic drugs for medical purposes — a position he shares with Abbott’s Republican predecessor, Rick Perry.

McConaughey recounted a conversation with a man he’d met in Australia who’d “been in and out of mental homes” but now has job and a wife, thanks to one treatment eight years earlier.

“He’s like, mate, it’s magic mushrooms,” McConaughey said. “It changed his life. Look, I’m still interested.”

He said it’s worth more study.

“I don’t know the data,” he said.

Voting restrictions

Another Abbott-backed law that took effect Sept. 1 dramatically overhauls election rules in ways Democrats view as voter suppression targeting nonwhites.

It bans drive-through voting, a procedure adopted during the pandemic in the state’s largest — and most Democrat-dense — counties.

It limits early voting hours.

Election officials risk prison if they send out an application for a mail-in ballot without a request from the voter.

Partisan poll watchers get far more latitude, raising the specter of voter intimidation.

It was a pretty big deal in Austin this year. More than 50 Democrats fled the Texas House and decamped to Washington for weeks to break quorum and impede the GOP effort.

McConaughey professes ignorance.

“I don’t know enough about that to be able to discuss the details on how I feel about that. I think it should be easier to vote. … Texas is its best — I like to say this — we’re here to lead, not secede,” he said.

‘A lot of explaining to do’

McConaughey insists he’s not being coy. He’s just thinking big thoughts on how to approach politics if he goes that route.

“Why is our nation’s trust level so low with our leaders, with ourselves, with each other? That’s more interesting to me, before I start hopping in the middle of politics going, well, this is where I stand,” he said Thursday.

The dance has lasted months. In July, the governor said he’s taking the potential challenge “very seriously.”

“He’s real popular mainly because he was already popular,” said Harold Cook, a longtime Democratic strategist in Texas. “The second he starts laying down a marker on any big issue he’s going to start losing support.”

The Republican Governors Association, which backs Abbott for a third term, isn’t bothering with opposition research so far, though they’re keeping an eye on him.

“I read his book when it came out last year. I couldn’t tell you what his political positions are on just about anything,” said RGA spokeswoman Joanna Rodriguez.

“If Matthew McConaughey decides to run, he’d have a lot of explaining to do about what his positions are on these issues,” she added. “Over the last two year voters have seen the incredible amount of power and authority that governors have. You can’t just walk into this job and coast on, you know, a brand. You need to have ideas. You need to have the ability to execute. … It’s a lot of work.”