An excited Chris Matthews used the incoming Super Tuesday 3 election results to speculate about his dream ticket: Clinton/Kasich 2016. Yes, really. The liberal Hardball host imagined, “I do think if you could ever find a way to put a ticket together that would actually end some of this mishegoss, to use a Yiddish word, that's going on in this country...it might be a Clinton/Kasich ticket.”
Lobbying as a way for Clinton to pick up disaffected Republicans who won’t vote for Trump, Matthews continued, “If Hillary Clinton was smart, she would make herself the alternative by putting Kasich on the ticket."
This isn’t the first time the journalist pushed this scenario. On May 28, 2015, he fantasized, “You know what I would like to see? I would like Hillary Clinton, I'd like to see her up about, five or ten points after her convention... and picking John Kasich, and blowing everybody's mind.”
On February 23, 2016, Matthews doubled down on Clinton selecting Kasich and told Republican Tom Ridge: “I'm not sure how the hell he fits into your party anymore. I wonder if your party has room for a moderate like Kasich anymore.”
On July 21, 2015, he said that “people like me tend to like” Kasich, touting the governor's liberal stances.
See partial transcript below:
Place for Politics
3/15/16
8:03BRIAN WILLIAMS: Chris Matthews is in Ohio. That's the state getting so much attention tonight. We have yet to call or project a winner there. Chris, that is where the hopes and dreams of John Kasich, the governor and his campaign are resting.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: They certainly are and I think if we see a large crossover tonight in the results, to him [Kasich] amongst Democrats and independents, that’s a strong statement, I think, and maybe this is just me talking, but I do think if you could ever find a way to put a ticket together that would actually end some of this mishegoss, to use a Yiddish word, that’s been going on in this country, it might be a Clinton/Kasich ticket, something really surprising, because I don’t think there’s going to be many, many, tens of millions of Republicans who will not vote for Donald Trump in a general election looking for an alternative. If Hillary Clinton was smart, she would make herself the alternative by putting Kasich on the ticket.
Now, of course this doesn’t happen in America because American politics because American politics is so free of wonder anymore. It’s so predictable. It’s paint by numbers on both sides. But I do think Kasich’s going to be a shining star coming out of tonight. The question is, how does he take the shining star of tonight’s victory to Cleveland again this summer? That’s the hardest thing to find as you’ve been saying all night. Cruz is the one, especially Nicole. Cruz is much stronger than kasich, even after tonight, especially if he wins Missouri and picks up that win and does well in North Carolina, he's still got the delegate advantage.
But I’ll tell ya, I think Kasich is something that I think lot of independents are looking at, hoping to get a chance to vote for in the general elections. So, I think it may be something for editorial writers to say after tonight. Maybe not, you know, people who actually put the numbers together come this summer in Cleveland when we’re back here with the Republican convention. But I think there's a statement made by the anti-Trump vote among independents, Democrats and Republicans. All tonight, and that passion is growing, and perhaps with it that it the hopes that it won’t just be the Bernie-fever or the Trump-fever, but the anti-Trump fever that begins to burn tonight. Brian?
