Every weekday afternoon, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews imparts his over 30 years of Washington, D.C. wisdom on his viewers. And on Thursday afternoon, he offered them a doozy.
In a segment about the possibility that Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann could win the 2012 nomination, Matthews wasn’t convinced the way the so-called boys’ club operates would allow that to happen.
“Well, I think if the president’s down to 44 percent the way he is right now, they have to have that meeting — the white boys’ club or whatever they call those governors that meets somewhere in Birmingham. And don’t they, Howard? They’re going to have one of those meetings in the men’s room or wherever the hell they meet and pick another candidate.”
However, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman didn’t quite go along with Matthews exact line of reasoning, but explained it could make Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour a plausible candidate.
“Well, I wouldn’t call the organization that, exactly,” Fineman said. “Well – what passes for the leadership of the party, somebody like Haley Barbour is making the calculation that he — even though he’s the southern good ol’ boy character or maybe partly because he is, can come off as an adult and mainstream figure in this environment. I mean, that’s Haley’s play – is that, ‘Look at all these other people out there. Yeah, I’ve got my infirmities. I was a lobbyist, you know I’m a good ol’ boy, etc. But I look like Dwight Eisenhower compared to some of these people.’”
Matthews did concede that Bachmann would add “pizazz” to the field of GOP nominees, which he claimed was lacking.
Watch: