Was anyone else watching the Hardball opening segment? Matthews, Fineman, Barnicle, and Chuck Todd are basically sticking it to PUMA, suggesting that they are just a loud, annoying fringe group...
Like many others, Chuck Todd is my favorite pundit, because his number crunching usually tells the story like it is. He made a couple of great points tamping down the Obama-Clinton melodrama:
- He thinks the story is being overhyped, and that it's a minor story that is being magnified by a press looking for some drama to write about.
- He suggests all of this will blow over once Teddy Kennedy and Michelle Obama hit the stage tonight.
- He says that the Clinton campaign actually did a "disservice" to its supporters by selling the idea that Hillary had a chance to win after the Wisconsin primary. He points out that she had no more than a "10% chance" to win at that point, even though the campaign sold it as a 50/50 possibility.
I tend to pretty much always watch Chuck Todd whenever he comes on air, and I've never seen him move away from being detached and objective like this. He probably wants to get back to the real nuts-and-bolts of the election, rather than this manufactured controversy.
UPDATE: Thanks for making this my first rec'd diary--a nice surprise after walking the baby! I haven't been able to read through all the comments, but I'd just state the obvious and say that Chuck Todd making these observations isn't the same as Olberman feeding us red meat, so he's not really stoking the PUMA fire (pun intended). What stood out is that Todd seemed somewhat animated (at least to me), which doesn't seem to happen very often.
Here's to an auspicious start to the convention!