MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews kicked off his interview with Hillary Clinton surrogate Bill de Blasio this evening with a gushy softball question about how the left-wing mayor of New York City must wish he was like Mickey, the boxing coach in Rocky, in Hillary’s corner at every fight, er debate.
“Don’t you wish you were actually with her every time,” Matthews wondered, “and could say, this is what you gotta do and this is what you’d better be careful of?”
Of course, in doing so, Matthews essentially papered over the fact that although de Blasio was indeed Hillary’s 2000 Senate campaign manager, he was actually rather reluctant last fall to endorse the former secretary of state and did so in a rather low-key announcement.
Here’s how The New York Times reported it in the October 30 paper (emphasis mine):
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s slow, awkward march toward endorsing Hillary Rodham Clinton — the woman who jump-started his political career — reached its widely predicted conclusion on Friday, as the mayor extended his presidential blessing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“The candidate who I believe can fundamentally address income inequality effectively, the candidate who has the right vision, the right experience and the ability to get the job done, is Hillary Clinton,” Mr. de Blasio said.
Mrs. Clinton, a fellow Democrat, did not appear on the program. Nor did she issue a statement about Mr. de Blasio. Instead, the Clinton campaign emailed a note to reporters calling the New York City mayor’s support “a sign of the campaign’s continued momentum.”
The note added, “The Clinton campaign will also announce that an additional 85 mayors from across the country will endorse her today.”
The circumstances of Mr. de Blasio’s endorsement offered a sign of the reduced interest in his presidential preferences since he initially denied Mrs. Clinton his blessing in April. When the Clinton campaign issued an official announcement about its latest wave of endorsements, Mr. de Blasio’s was given fourth billing, after the mayors of Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia.
By this week, Mr. de Blasio’s six-month delay in issuing an endorsement was viewed in political circles as quixotic at best. Virtually all leading Democrats in New York have already thrown their support behind Mrs. Clinton, along with leading liberal Democrats like Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
Later on in the program, closing a panel discussion, Matthews offered his own free advice for Hillary’s campaign, catching himself in the process and insisting he was not acting as Hillary’s “Mickey in the corner”:
I don’t know whether she’s a good tub-thumper, you know, the Ted Kennedy kind of tub-thumping. I’m here to get you riled up, I’m here to get you excited. I’m not sure that’s her forte. But there’s another way around that.
Jimmy Carter – who won the presidency out of nowhere – instead of going to those rallies after he won a primary, would sit down with the anchors and have a calm conversation, introduce himself. That’s a better format. But then again, I’m not Mickey in the corner, here. Just, I think it might work.
Here are the relevant video and transcript from the de Blasio interview:
MSNBC
Hardball
February 11, 2016; 7:34 p.m. Eastern
graphic: Clinton, Sanders to Debate Tonight in Milwaukee
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host: Mr. Mayor, I don't know about you, but, I'm sure I know about you, this one thing. You must wish like in Rocky, the movie, all of those movies, you were the guy in the corner of those movies, you were the guy in the corner with the towel.
And when she comes back from a round, you want to be able to say, good punch there, protect your left, protect your this, but get him again in the chin.
I mean, don’t you wish you were actually with her every time and could say, this [is] what you gotta do and this is what you’d better be careful of?
Mayor BILL de BLASIO (D–New York City): Well, Chris, I like your Philadelphia references there.
[Matthews laughs off-camera]
De BLASIO: You’re true to your homeland…
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