Chris Matthews. Yeah, you heard me, some folks are getting behind Chris Matthews, once again following the time-honored Pennsylvania urge to choose based on name recognition.
But, you know, drafting Chris Matthews might be good. It might. What is definitely good to see is all the interest in this race. Go check out the folks at the "Draft Matthews" web site. They've put a lot of thought into it, and have even put up a draft Matthews petition. (Only sign it if you're a Pennsylvania resident, folks!) And it's not just those folks who have jumped on the Chris Matthews bandwagon. A blog called "Lower Merion Grassroots" is also hot about the Hardball star. Matthews has government experience and certainly is liberal in all the right places, and he's not afraid to stand his ground. Further, and something that will play well in Philadelphia, he's got the image of having lived in a traditional working class neighborhood and having pulled himself up by the bootstraps.
Now I'm not going to kid anyone. Chris Matthews will not take the job. Yes, Chris Matthews will likely become a draft-dodger, despite the best intentions of what may be a bunch of college kids who were trained in the politics of Hardball. But that doesn't mean that their attempts to draft him are exercises in futility. Every single light shone on this race, and thus on the Jesse Helms of the North, Rick Santorum, is good for the cause. Remember, folks, this is the most important race in the country in 2006.Edit: I'm not the only one noticing this race, and I found a particularly odd bit of wingnuttery over on Attytood. Will references a letter-to-the-editor of a guy decrying Rendell's elbowing Barbara Hafer out of the Senate race and endorsed Bob Casey. You see, I know the letter writer, Jack Morley, and have for ten years, and he's as strange a wingnut as I've ever met. He actually thinks his letter will convince Democrats to write-in votes for Hafer and keep Casey, who Jack fears as a candidate, from winning the primary. He may be the most prolific letter-writer to the Daily News and Inquirer that there is, and it's a little funny that the Daily News couldn't see that Jack was trying a little dirty trick with his letter in not disclosing his true pro-life feelings. The whole thing is funny, but it DOES remind me -- I've heard that his wife divorced Jack, and I've got to try and contact her just to say hello.
