Appearing on Morning Joe this am, Hardball host Chris Matthews opined on why President Obama finally agreed to sit down with him for an interview. “I always thought, you know, I see the president pop up on different kinds of shows, you know, the entertainment shows like Letterman and Leno, and I go, ‘Why can’t we get him?,'” he said.
“[Obama] may be going his base,” Matthews continued, “he may going to look for the more progressive voters and hold that 40 percent. When you start to dip below 40 percent, you got to fight, you got to go on offense in this country. That may explain why he gave that populist speech. When you’re in trouble in efficiency and competence you shift the topic to ideology. Which side are you on … You change the subject.”
In fairness, Matthews will be interviewing Obama in front of university students, so maybe that’s what he means by the base (“I think he wants to appear before a young group,” Matthews said at one point). Regardless, any time a politician is forced to shore up his base, it’s a bad sign.
Along those lines, Matthews went on to concede that Obama “can’t make competence over health care the next six months. The news will not be wonderful, blue skies. So do you want to grind it out over the next six months of daily reports on health care, or do you want change the subject to what kind of a country do you want to live in, and hopefully hold your rear guard, hold your 40 percent?” he said.
Video below: