Chris Matthews Stars in Future Marco Rubio Campaign Commercial

July 7th, 2010 6:05 PM

UPDATE: It turns out that the future is NOW. This Matthews video is running as a Marco Rubio campaign commercial as of yesterday.

Are you happy with the job that the Obama administration and the Democrats are doing? If so, then vote for Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate because Chris Matthews happily proclaimed that Crist is going to be the new star in the Democrat caucus. However, if you are dissatisfied with the direction this nation is going and want to change it, then Marco Rubio will be your choice which is why your humble correspondent won't be a bit surprised to see this video of Matthews making his proclamation about Crist on Morning Joe end up as a Rubio campaign commercial. Here is a transcript of Matthews delivering his kiss of death product endorsement of Charlie Crist:

Charlie Crist is going to be the new star of the Democratic caucus in the Senate. He's going to be a major player in the Democratic Party down the road. He'll be a moderate Democrat somewhere in the middle. I think he's very shrewd and nimble.

This sudden Matthews infatuation with Charlie Crist stands in sharp contrast with his attitude back in May when he was sharply critical of the Florida governor's performance on Meet The Press where he played coy by avoiding a direct answer about which party he would caucus with and for whom he would vote for Majority Leader of the Senate as you can see in the video below:

Here is a transcript of Matthews' disgust with Crist at that time:

...I used to sort of like Charlie Crist but he's off-base on that. You have to join a party caucus before you can vote for leader. He can't decide which leader he's going to vote for because he's not even voting. He must join a caucus then you get to vote for which person leads that caucus. That's how it's done. He doesn't seem to know that or he rejects knowing it. What do you think? Is he just ignorant or is he playing a game here?

So what changed in the past couple of months to cause Matthews to move from disgust with Charlie Crist to developing a "strange new respect" for the Florida governor? Most likely it was the realization by Matthews and fellow liberals that the likely Democrat nominees, Kendrick Meek or billionaire Jeff Greene, have little or no chance of winning the general election in November. Therefore the best chance of promoting the liberal agenda in the Senate would be to back Charlie Crist running as an independent who was too liberal to win the Republican nomination.

And Marco Rubio should thank Matthews for that wonderful future campaign commercial clip reminding Florida voters (many of whom still mistakenly think of Crist as a Republican) that Charlie is a Democrat.