On his syndicated Chris Matthews Show on Sunday, the conspicuously pro-Obama MSNBC host announced how he expected that “election night is going to be emotional for all of us....Particularly if it goes in that historic direction, it’s going to be very emotional for everybody. I mean, everybody.”
A few minutes later, in his closing commentary about the election, Matthews (a potential Democratic Senate candidate in 2010) offered a not-very veiled endorsement of Barack Obama, suggesting his election would mean a “leap towards something better and uniting our country as never before in our history.”
So we’ll be more united than we were after 9/11? More united than during World War II? Maybe the bartender who serves the Obama Kool-Aid at MSNBC had better cut Matthews off — he’s had a few too many.
During a panel discussion of the significance of Obama’s election (which seemed to be the assumption of all of Matthews’ guests on Sunday), Time magazine’s Joe Klein announced how the election of an African-American president would be a “huge” and “profound” development:
We’re watching something huge taking place. And, you know, to go back to the African-American vote, there are an awful lot of African-Americans, I know, who don’t believe in their heart of hearts that white people will vote for a black man....with just cause, because of the way they’ve been treated in their lives. It is going to change — if this man is elected, the inner life of so many Americans is going — is going to change in the most basic profound sort of way.
A few moments later, Matthews announced that election night would be emotional:
I’m glad you used the word “huge,” Joe, because I think election night is going to be emotional for all of us. And I think, even those of us who do it for a profession, if this election goes — particularly if it goes in that historic direction, it’s going to be very emotional for everybody. I mean, everybody.
Of course, there are a lot of conservatives who will be quite distressed if Obama wins — not because they are against any progress by African-Americans but because they are disturbed thinking about the laws that might be passed by a liberal House and Senate and signed by the liberal President Obama in the White House.
Matthews revisited the theme in his closing thoughts of his November 2 show:
If Americans elect Barack Obama President, we will evidence for ourselves and for the world the truth said by our forefathers to be self-evident, not just that we are created equal, endowed with certain liberties, but that old founding notion of “we” has been replaced by something new and truly American.
So as we start this new century now at full speed, Americans seem on the verge of, in one vote, achieving two goals: taking a great American leap towards something better and uniting our country as never before in our history.
