If Tim Russert of NBC News is the New Hampshire primary of political pundits — crucial, serious and august — then his colleague Chris Matthews, intense, voluble and unavoidable, is the Iowa caucuses. And it takes one to cover one, as Mr. Matthews demonstrated with his coverage Thursday night on MSNBC.
Advertisement
Imprudence and wacky, after-action questions posed an hour before voting starts are mere illustrations of Mr. Matthews' "enthusiasm:"
He is not afraid to make predictions, even wrong ones. Before the voting began, he announced that John McCain would win 18 percent of the vote in Iowa. And he summarily, if correctly, ruled Mitt Romney out. “Are these guys, these hotshot professionals with their Harvard M.B.A.’s, do they feel their business plan didn’t work out tonight, or what?” he said of Romney advisers. The question was posed, more than an hour before the voting started, to Ron Allen of NBC News, who had little choice but to agree.Here's my favorite line, about Matthews' special charm:
Mr. Matthews has a way of haranguing guests.Ya don't say?
And, a little more mania:
Throughout the night, Mr. Matthews blurted on about the Roosevelt election in 1932 and 19th-century races. He mixed some metaphors and made up terms like “victory projectile.”
Advertisement
Join the conversation as a VIP Member