NRO Asks: Whither Senator Chris Matthews?

National Review Online posted a symposium Friday on whether a Chris Matthews U.S. Senate campaign is the real deal. Former Senator Rick Santorum finds it plausible: “Since Chris would have no geographic base in the state, he would need to have at least one primary opponent from each of the Democratic strongholds — Pittsburgh and Philadelphia — to be competitive. The real questions are, how soon will he come back to the state to begin running full time, and how much retail politics does the celebrity have in him?"

NRO asked me for a media critic's opinion, and so I wrote:

I have no doubt Chris Matthews would enjoy the life of a senator, but whether he is electable or whether his constant blabbering would eventually lead to widespread public disgust is anyone’s guess.

The worst idea in the next few months would be for Matthews to try and run for the Senate and simultaneously hold on to his Hardball chair at MSNBC. It’s already getting difficult to watch him mock Sarah Palin’s potential 2010 Senate ambitions or witness him interviewing key Democratic operatives without wondering about his own political motives.

On the other hand, his current media career and a Democratic Senate career don’t really look that different. Matthews defined himself in 2008 as every conservative’s favorite caricature of Obama obsequiousness. From the infamous “thrill up my leg” comment to his cock-eyed classification of Obama’s very Clintonesque race speech with the American literary classics of Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Matthews was the Best Poodle in Show. His post-election declaration that his job as a journalist was to help the Obama presidency succeed also blurred all the lines between professions. There is a silver lining: In today’s media culture, a Senator Matthews would be much less omnipresent on TV.

You have to enjoy Mark Dion, who helped Rep. Pat Toomey run against Specter from the right in 2004:

The speculation that Chris Matthews is looking to run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania is intriguing, for no other reason than that a debate between Matthews and Sen. Arlen Specter would be quite a match-up of two long-winded, pro-choice, self-absorbed, tax-loving, pork-supporting know-it-alls.

GOP consultant Mark Brabender offered this comforting analysis:

Chris Matthews running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania is an absolutely marvelous idea. That is, if you are Arlen Specter. If the Specter campaign could design their perfect opponent, it would look remarkably like Chris Matthews.

This is not meant to be a harsh criticism of Matthews, but rather an honest reality of the complexities of Specter. Specter’s poll numbers over the years reveal he is far from a typical Republican. The paradoxical truth is that he is frequently viewed more favorably among Democrats than Republicans. And in a state with a 12-point Democratic majority, that’s not a bad thing.

In 2004, Specter sweated out a razor-thin primary victory over Congressman Pat Toomey. This would appear to predict a difficult general election, particularly in a presidential year where turnout in the almost unanimously Democratic city of Philadelphia would be high — yet Specter was reelected by a comfortable 9 points.

A Matthews candidacy does for Specter what he has trouble doing for himself: It solidifies his support among conservatives. Specter’s angst on wedge votes like Card Check vanishes. And although Chris Matthews has no voting record to defend, his years of pontificating would be an opposition researcher’s dream come true.

One would hope and expect that anyone running against Chris Matthews (including Democratic primary opponents) would go looking for mind-blowing Matthews moments in the MRC/NB archives.