Just when the prevailing winds seemed to be suggesting that the prospect of a Pennsylvania Senate run for MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was a ploy in his upcoming network contract renewal negotiations, along came no less than the sitting Pennsylvania governor to pour a few gallons of gas onto the flames. In an appearance on Bloomberg Television, Ed Rendell (D) said Matthews looked good in early polling among potential competitors for the Democratic nomination, and if locked into an electoral contest today with incumbent Arlen Specter (R-PA), he’d trail by a only single percentage point.
Rendell said his high name recognition factor and his acceptance among moderates and independents were big positives, and also said that his own political consultant had been in talks with Matthews. That said, Rendell did not know if Matthews had made a firm decision regarding a run.
RBR/TVBR observation: Another piece of conventional wisdom is that if Matthews is indeed going to toss his hat in the ring, he needs to withdraw from MSNBC ASAP. As we noted earlier, we suspect Specter’s oppo research team would have a field day with the rich treasure trove of Matthews footage available to them. But we didn’t see a pseudo-endorsement from Rendell coming, so we guess we will just stay tuned.
