When Ben Cardin, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland, appeared on this afternoon's Hardball, host Chris Matthews played a Cardin TV ad most of which was taken up by Cardin informing voters that:

"I always try to do what's right, what's in the best interest of Maryland families: taking on the drug companies, the oil companies, the insurance companies."

Let's first note Cardin's daring admission that he tries to do 'what's right.' Bold stuff! Actually, come to think of the track record of Maryland politicians when it comes to obeying the law, maybe it is a rather maverick position after all.

But moving to the meat of his message, is this the platform that Dems in general and Cardin in particular want to offer voters? Vote for us: we'll attack our country's biggest employers and taxpayers! You might call the platform: Cardin vs. Capitalism.

Questioning Cardin, Matthews engaged in an odd bit of liberal white guilt-tripping. Said Matthews:

"You ran against an African-American, a real leader in the country, Kweisi Mfume for the nomination, now here you are again [in the general] running against one of the few African-American possibilities to be a US Senator [Republican Michael Steele]. Does that bother you, because there are so few black members of the United States Senate in history?"

It didn't.