WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Comedian Stephen Colbert insisted on Sunday that his ambition to run for president was no joke and said he was considering Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho as a vice presidential running mate.

"I don't want to be president. I want to run for president. There's a difference," the host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" said in a television interview.

"I'm far realer than Sam Brownback, let me put it that way," he told NBC's "Meet the Press" in a reference to Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, who dropped out of the 2008 White House race on Friday.

Colbert, whose pugnacious egomaniacal TV persona routinely mocks conservative talk shows, hopes to run in both the Republican and Democratic primaries in his native South Carolina "because I'd like to lose twice."

Colbert said he has not spoken to Craig, who is embroiled in a sex scandal after being snared in an airport men's room sting operation.

His strategy, Colbert explained, was to win enough votes to receive a single South Carolina delegate to next year's Democratic presidential convention.

"Why else run as a favorite son if you're not going to broker a convention? And if I get a delegate, it will be a brokered convention -- unless they offer me to let me speak, then maybe I would turn over my delegate," he said.
© Copyright 2007 Reuters.

Photo:
Comedian Stephen Colbert waits to meet White House Spokesman Tony Snow inside the White House press briefing room, July 27, 2007. Colbert insisted on Sunday that his ambition to run for president was no joke and said he was considering Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho as a vice presidential running mate. REUTERS/Larry Downing