Different, fer sure

Chris Matthews, host of Hardball on MSNBC, might not be better, but he'd sure as hell be different:

There's been a lot of speculation that Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's "Hardball" is mulling a run against Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter in 2010. The blog FiveThirtyEight reported Friday that Matthews was "staffing up" and was likely to run. Matthews quickly denied it. The Harrisburg Patriot-News said today that Matthews "isn't ready to say he's running for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, but he continues to talk with top Democrats about the possibility," including Democratic State Committee Chairman T.J. Rooney and executive director Mary Isenhour. Matthews, who once ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Pennsylvania, started all this speculation himself in April when he said "I want to be a Senator."
Naturally, some pollsters have been feeling out his chances. A Quinnipiac University survey conducted Nov. 19-24 showed Specter leading Matthews 45 percent to 43 percent with 2 percent preferring someone else, and 19 percent who were undecided or didn't answer. Specter draws the support of 72 percent of Republicans, 25 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of independents. Matthews so far only gets the backing of 55 percent of Democrats and 27 percent of independents.
At this point, Matthews' favorable to unfavorable ratio mainly shows that most voters (60 percent) haven't heard enough about him. Specter is viewed favorably by 56 percent compared to 23 percent who see him unfavorably. That 19 percent say they don't know enough about a five-term incumbent seems odd. His favorability rating among fellow Republicans is 60 percent.
"Matthews has been on MSNBC wall to wall during the election season, but is a question mark for 60 percent of the voters," said Quinnipiac's Clay Richards. "Specter has been relatively invisible the past year and has a strong 56 percent favorable rating."

Rico says he's not sure of Matthews' politics, but he's sure he doesn't like Specter's...