Phoenix ? Charles Barkley insists he’s serious about running for governor of Alabama, but he has to move back there first.

“I can’t run until 2014,” he said. “I have to live there for seven years, so I’m looking for a house there as we speak.”

And he said he was an independent, not a Democrat as previously reported.

“The Republicans are full of it,” Barkley said. “The Democrats are a little less full of it.”

Asked if he ever had been in the governor’s office in Montgomery, Barkley said no.

“They don’t let many black people in the governor’s mansion in Alabama,” he said, “unless they’re cleaning.”

The comments came Thursday at US Airways Center, leading up to his induction into the basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. Barkley, 43, will be inducted today in a class that features Dominique Wilkins; Pistons guard and current team president Joe Dumars; Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma; former Big East and Celtics executive Dave Gavitt; and Italian coach Sandro Gamba.