Campaign Diaries

Al Franken’s race remains unresolved, but the media is already preparing to move on to the next entertaining candidate, Chris Matthews.And that doesn’t necessarily bode well for Democrats.

The hosto of MSNBC’s Hardball has been rumored to be preparing a run against Republican Senator Arlen Specter for months now, and speculation is seemingly increasingly by the day. After some reported last week that he had already started to staff up, Matthews countered that these reports were “absolutely not true” - though he was careful not to deny that he was thinking of running.

Since then, more articles have been written about the possible match-up; Quinnipiac polled the race to find a 12% lead for Specter; and the Republican incumbent himself moved to respond to the speculation. “I long ago adopted the philosophy of Satchel Paige, the old pitcher, and that is I never look over my shoulder, never look behind. Somebody may be gaining on me. I run with blinders,” he said.

Despite all this speculation, there is no evidence that Matthews would be a particularly strong contender. In fact, the party has enough of a bench in the Keystone State that other Democrats would be likely to mount more credible challenges to Specter. Unfortunately for Democrats, many of these potential candidates might not consider the race for fear of running against the Matthews show.

This is what happened in Minnesota in early 2007: Al Franken’s decision to jump into electoral politics led to other stronger Democrats not running. (Mike Ciresi was the only other Democrat to enter the race - but it’s not like that wealthy businessman would have been the strongest potential nominee either.) There seems to be little doubt that other Democrats could have been more credible candidates against the obviously vulnerable Norm Coleman, but Franken was simply sucking all of the oxygen out of the race.

On November 4th, Democrats swept their top Senate targets except Minnesota, where Coleman and Franken remain deadlocked four weeks after the election. Given how defensive a campaign Franken had to run for much of 2008, it is remarkable that he managed to stay that competitive - and it should certainly make Democrats wonder what might have been.

If the same pattern holds in Pennsylvania, Democrats could once again waste one of their top pick-up opportunities by letting the celebrity and entertainment factors trumpother considerations for the second cycle in a row.

What is most fascinating about Al Franken and Chris Matthews is that both are far more mainstream politicians than most people realize. Franken has the reputation of an outspoken and very liberal provocateur when he holds very centrist positions on issues. Matthews, meanwhile, is more than a celebrity looking to capitalize on his notoriety to get elected: he had a long legislative career in the 1980s and served as an aide to Speaker Tip O’Neill.

But it is not surprising that these facts get lost behind the entertainment value of their candidacies. The coverage Matthews is already receiving is certainly not due to his years as a House aide two decades ago. In other words, Franken and Matthews are jumping into electoral politics with some of the pitfalls of looking like conventional politicians but without its benefits - the first of which is credibility. And both men are coming in with their share of baggage. Republicans did their best to sink Franken with his; if Matthews jumps in the Senate race, you can be sure that we will hear a lot about some of his sexist comments.

Matthews could prove to be a great campaigner, and the GOP might not find as many controversies to unearth to put him in the defensive like it did with Al Franken. Other Democrats might actually jump in and take the nomination from Matthews. The GOP might have a good year in 2010, making most of these discussions irrelevant. But Democrats should still rememberthe lessons of Minnesota.