Is the thrill gone?
In 2008, Chris Matthews often lauded then-candidate Barack Obama, even saying at one point that he felt a thrill go up his leg during one of his speeches. However, after Wednesday night’s presidential debate, Matthews changed his tone on Obama.
“Well, this tonight wasn’t an MSNBC debate, was it?” Matthews said. “It just wasn’t. It had none of the things you mentioned. It didn’t mention all of the key fighting points of this campaign. And, certainly, there was no Bobby Kennedy in the green room before Barack Obama came out tonight. I don’t know what he was doing there. He had his head down. He was enduring the debate, rather than fighting.”
Matthews said the president should tune into MSNBC for debate talking points in the future.
“Here’s my question for Obama,” Matthews said. “I know he likes to say he doesn’t watch cable television, but maybe he should start, maybe he should start. I don’t know how he let Romney get away with the crap he threw out tonight about Social Security. Listen to the stuff he got away with.”
After some more lamenting, Matthews even praised Romney for his strategy.
“Where was Obama tonight?” Matthews said. “He should watch — well not just ‘Hardball,’ Rachel, he should watch you, the Reverend Al, he should watch Lawrence. He would learn something about this debate. There’s a hot debate going on in this country — know where it’s being held? Here on this network is where we’re having the debate. We have our knives out. We go after the people and the facts. What was he doing tonight? He went in there disarmed. He was, ‘Wait an hour and a half, I think I can get through this thing, I don’t even want to look at this guy.’ Whereas Romney — I loved the split screen, staring at Obama, addressing him like the prey. He did it just right. I’m coming at an incumbent. I’ve got to beat him. You got to beat the champ and I’m going to beat him tonight. And I don’t care what this guy moderator whatever he think he is because I’m going to ignore him. What was Romney doing? He was winning.”