Senator Hardball?

By Robert Schlesinger

I’ve been in a hole the last week or so, what with the new job and the book launch, so I missed this nugget from friend of the blog Jacqueline Policastro, an Erie, Pa. TV reporter:

Chris Matthews, host of “Hardball” on MSNBC, could be our next U.S. Senator. … A few weeks back at a social event here in Washington, Matthews told me face to face that he’s seriously considering a run, and that he wants Senator Arlen Specter’s seat in 2010.

Matthews of course ran for Congress in the distant past, mounting an unsuccessful Democratic primary bid in 1974 against an incumbent. (Later, he was a Carter speechwriter.)