Revealed: Why Chris Matthews Nixed Senate Run

Chris Matthews' much-talked-about Senate run is not to be, and US News' Nikki Schwab finds out why from NBC's Chuck Todd:

"Because [Chris] had a really good friend of his say to him, 'What are you going to do when you get there?' and he couldn't answer the question and he realized that, and that's why he didn't run," says Todd. "It was a childhood dream to be a senator, but he didn't know what he was going to do if he got there." It was the same for 2008 presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain, says the coauthor of How Barack Obama Won. "They never knew why they wanted to be president."

I'll get back to Matthews in a minute. Did Chuck just say that Hillary Clinton didn't know why she wanted to be President? Well, I guess he wasn't counting on much PUMA viewership, anyway.

As for Matthews, I don't think I buy this anecdote. It might be something he cooked up to tell the honeys as he stares meaningfully into his scotch, but I know how far Matthews got in the process. It seems unlikely he would get that far without knowing why he was doing it, or at least that he'd admit that, were it true.