Have you heard?\u00c2\u00a0 Chris Matthews is planning a run for the Democratic Senate seat in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
I don’t know my Pennsylvania Democratic constituency, so I have no clue how that would play out.\u00c2\u00a0 But … he’s kind of everything that is wrong with the world of punditry — a dashless display of and horse racing untethered to any outcome.\u00c2\u00a0 Also with a politics which shifts\u00c2\u00a0way too readily — as with his wistful proclamations on Election Day 2002 and 2004 on the “Real American values” carrying the day with perhaps dumb but ultimately morally sound Country Music sentiment — compared with Election Day 2006 and 2008 about the “Blue Values” imbedded in Greater America … civil liberties, and “not a center right nation”.<\/p>\n
Or, more to the point, positions on Bush — up on him when Bush was up; down on him when he’s been down.\u00c2\u00a0 Also: well — this clip is cut a little too closely cropped<\/a>, and would be a bit better in context if it included the serious minded analysis which preceeded it.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m gathering that Matthews would have to hope for a three way primary contest, to scoop up the flagrantly sexist male demographic.<\/p>\n Right now Al Franken (.”…[momentary and tangeantal comic relief moved to more relevant post.])\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>is\u00c2\u00a0dwelling with\u00c2\u00a0a protracted ballot recount.\u00c2\u00a0 Al Franken has a great deal more to recommend him for both a Senate seat, and for a Democratic nomination.\u00c2\u00a0 Oddly enough, the fact that his radio program was somewhat studiously\u00c2\u00a0labored into policy\u00c2\u00a0is a key difference which recommends Franken over Matthews.\u00c2\u00a0 It always seemed to me that Franken\u00c2\u00a0was intent on using his program to get firmer grounding in matters of policy\u00c2\u00a0to be a more serious Senate candidate, and presumably Senator.<\/p>\n But there is an apt comparison here.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you want Al Franken as a Senator?\u00c2\u00a0 Not really, but I’d want him over Chris Matthews.\u00c2\u00a0 Interesting to note, had the Minnesota DFL party nominated some conventional Democratic politician — Mike Cirsea — they Democrats would probably have that senate seat right now.\u00c2\u00a0 As it were, we have a pretty tedious slog — one which reading the comments in the NY Times post<\/a> here makes me shake my head.\u00c2\u00a0 I hate the sort of stratified sloganeering.\u00c2\u00a0 And the only reason I’d just turn this over to a “Just flip a coin” is to circumvent the Impatience Mongerers get to me and their demand would end it here with Coleman ahead where the coin flip gives it a 50 – 50 shot and probably about what\u00c2\u00a0a mythical\u00c2\u00a0angelic vantage point of Election Day\u00c2\u00a0“Intent of the Voter” canvassing\u00c2\u00a0brings us<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0as Franken mulls yesterday’s set-back.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0A similar problem existed when a North Carolinan I know (or “Internet know”) expressed disappointment that the state had not been called yet — the hurry, particularly in calling North Carloina which bears not at all on outcomes, is what?<\/p>\n But the sheer mind numbing cynical politics of a recount, and what it\u00c2\u00a0brings two candidates to argue in terms of Challenged Ballots — is a game which ends up having to be played for the same reason you have to slice up re-districting to suit your party:\u00c2\u00a0 the other side is doing it.<\/p>\n Al Franken in the Senate.\u00c2\u00a0 Chris Matthews in the Senate.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps the Republicans can get in the act and send in Charles Krauthammer, Ann Coulter, and David Brooks… have them carpet-bag the proper states of electibility.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Georgia campaign goes.\u00c2\u00a0 Jim Martin trails by three points to Saxby Chambliss.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is interesting, because that was what he trailed by since the Day of the Great Hank Paulson Panic, and that’s what he was beaten by in the Election.\u00c2\u00a0 As a sidenote, in 2002 when Mary Landrieu was losing on the day of the Election run-off in Louisiana, Bill Clinton came in and did a giant robo-call which spurred the margin of victory in Landrieu’s favor by bringing out the black vote.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately the Democrats don’t have a high profile politician in 2008 popular amongst black Americans, so…<\/p>\n The Republicans have Zell Miller.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s campaigned for Chambliss.\u00c2\u00a0 That’ll get their vote out, right?\u00c2\u00a0 Zell?\u00c2\u00a0 Hm… Challenged Matthews to a dual… maybe Matthews wouldn’t be too bad after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you heard?\u00c2\u00a0 Chris Matthews is planning a run for the Democratic Senate seat in Pennsylvania. I don’t know my Pennsylvania Democratic constituency, so I have no clue how that would play out.\u00c2\u00a0 But … he’s kind of everything that is wrong with the world of punditry — a dashless display of and horse racing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}