For the second segment of his July 22 Hardball program, MSNBC's Chris Matthews took a brief break from his priority on Trump-bashing to effusively praise the latest GOP presidential primary entrant, Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio), whom he once fantasized on air as accepting a vice presidential nomination from Democrat Hillary Clinton.
"He's got a good story to tell, and he could give Jeb Bush a real fight, believe it or not. Watch this guy, he's for real," Matthews effused in a tease to the segment about Kasich's announcement speech.
"This is a great moment," Matthews gushed to correspondent Kasie Hunt, who appeared via satellite from Columbus, Ohio. "I think it was a very positive speech at a time when there's a lot of negativity out there."
Moments later, Matthews added that he loved how Kasich failed to "give them red meat" nor "blast Obama" in his campaign kick-off but instead spoke a lot about his "personal story" and his extended family:
It was great story time. It sounds like my family, to some extent, but, it was so to me American and positive. That's what I liked about it.
But Matthews doesn't simply like Kasich because of his speaking style, his aw-shucks attitude, nor his penchant for storytelling. In a brief follow-up segment, Matthews laid it out pretty plainly in a comment to former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
"People like me tend to like this guy. That's probably why people like you don't," Matthews offered, explaining:
Because I think the hard conservatives have a hard time with a guy that says let's move on from the same-sex debate, and let's not keep arguing that one over and over again. They also think that Medicaid should cover people who are near-working poor and not just the ultimate poor, and that believes that somewhere along the line, people who come here illegally should have a chance to become legal if they do everything right once they're here because they're here anyway.
