It looks like Alec Baldwin has found himself a fallback career should he follow through with his oft-rumored plans to leave “30 Rock” after this coming season is done. He has designs on entering the one profession with even less stability than acting – politics. In an interview with the New York Times, the actor strongly hinted that he’s looking into a potential run for mayor of New York City someday.

To prepare for that mayoral bid, he told the Times he’s looking into pursuing a master’s degree in politics and government next spring “to help me better understand what the fiscal imperatives of that (mayor’s) job are. What’s the reality of the city unions, of contracts, agreements, teachers, infrastructure, decentralizing, everything? And utilities, Con Ed, the M.T.A. — how does it all work?”

If he enrolls in a master’s program, he wouldn’t be done with it in time for the next New York mayoral election in 2013. That’s why he wouldn’t commit to time when he might actually run for the office, and he acknowledged that if and when he does pursue politics as a career, things could go horribly wrong for him.

“I am someone who is fully prepared for the fact that I could go into this and do it and completely have my ass kicked,” he said. “I could throw a party and no one could come. And it would be this staggering lesson for me.”