First up, on the July 9 edition of "Hardball," Matthews made the following introduction to a segment with NBC's Chuck Todd on state by state poll numbers.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Welcome back to "Hardball." The NBC News political unit has some brand new battleground maps on the fight for the White House. Let's check in with NBC News political director Chuck Todd. Chuck, dazzle us right now, will ya? Because I'm thrilled with this. Obama's strength in the Northeast, the West Coast and the Great Lakes.
Now to be fair to Matthews, he could have just been "thrilled" in anticipation of Todd's dazzling poll analysis. However, a little later in the program, Matthews seemed to have gotten caught up in the excitement of former DNC Chair McAuliffe predicting a big Democratic victory in the fall:
MATTHEWS: How many senators after this is all over for the Democratic Party? 55? 56?
TERRY MCAULIFFE: 56, 57 I think. Could actually...
MATTHEWS: Really? You can pick up Gordon Smith?
MCAULIFFE: Well look at Mississippi. Ronnie Musgrove is up six, we could do Kentucky with Bruce Lunsford.
MATTHEWS: Oh that's a real stretch.
MCAULIFFE: We could win Alaska, we could win Oregon, we could end up winning Minnesota.
MATTHEWS: Oh that would be 58.
MCAULIFFE: New Hampshire we've got. We look at Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado. Those four are good.
MATTHEWS: You got Colorado, you got Colorado. You got New Mexico, you got at least those two. You got, I can see a 55. You think you can get up to 56 or 57?
MCAULIFFE: We could and here's the important thing as a Democrat. 80 percent of the state legislator seats are up.
MATTHEWS: Okay.
MCAULIFFE: They're up. You know what that affects? 2010 redistricting. We gotta stay together. We can win it all!
MATTHEWS: Why don't you come on here...
MCAULIFFE: This could be a sweep! Chris this could be all ours!
MATTHEWS: Alright. You could be, you could be. Come on Election Night, get the vote out. Anyway.
MCAULIFFE: Thank you.
MATTHEWS: Terry McAuliffe. Once and future chair of the leader of all party Democrats.
