A brief look at Chris Matthews' "Hardball", circa Moscow 1930...
(Alternately titled "Lady Dowd of the Mtsensk District," or "Quiet Flows the Potomac.")
Matthews: Hello, I'm Chris Matthews, welcome to "Hardball", tonight we'll be talking politics, Stalin, Trotsky, and much more! With me tonight, Maureen Dowd, former Kremlin adviser Joe Klein, and syndicated Communist David Brooks, welcome everyone, and let me just start this off, Maureen, this election is about national security, isn't it?
Dowd: Well what's interesting, Chris, what's interesting is, who actually fought? Trotsky was in the vanguard, he's made a big deal about it, always talking about Kronstadt.
Brooks: Maureen but people aren't looking at that. People don't want to re-fight those battles. This isn't about the past. No one wants to hear that stuff.
Matthews: So the whole, "I'm Leon Trotsky and I'm reporting for duty," that doesn't work for anyone?
Dowd: No, I don't think so. It's not powerful anymore, not like Stalin at the May Day Parade. We all saw him in that uniform, he looks like a real hero. Comrade Simon wrote the other day, "shoulders you could land an Ilyushin on."
Matthews: Maureen you've said, he just looks like a leader, and the mustache, I think women see the mustache as a...a symbol, for...well, I mean Gordon Liddy referred to his "manly characteristic..."
(Crosstalk)
Matthews: OK well that's enough for now, let's go to a break, we'll be right back!
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Matthews: Welcome back, moving on, Joe, what about some of the second-tier candidates? Zinoviev? Kamenev?
Klein: Well look, I love them, they're entertaining, but let's be honest, these aren't mainstream candidates. They're amusing. They're weird. Soon we'll be down to just the serious candidates.
Brooks: The sooner they're out of the way, then the campaign really begins...
Klein: ...Because then the frontrunners can stop pandering to these little activist constituencies...
Matthews: But let's be fair, I mean some of them are really qualified, no?
Brooks: Look, Bukharin practically wrote the constitution, but his isn't a resume election. Bukharin's polling nothing. Something else is going on here with voters.
Dowd: I think we saw early on that this isn't about resumes, I mean look at the impact of those "Armored Train Veterans for Truth" ads. Trotsky's experience isn't helping. It just isn't the issue for most Russians.
Matthews: What is? Stay tuned! We'll be right back in a moment!
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Matthews: Welcome back! David, personality matters, who are Russians comfortable with? Trotsky has a strong military record from a decade ago, but does it matter? Does it mean Russians trust him to keep them safe from counterrevolutionaries?
Brooks: Well as you've said before Chris, Stalin just has this certain "nobility". Russians trust that.
Dowd: He's not an egghead. People would rather have a vodka with him.
Klein: Stalin was seminary-educated. Russians can relate to that. Trotsky, I don't know, he's just not comfortable with the Mother Church.
Brooks: This is a regular guy, I mean you can see him picking mushrooms...not windsurfing.
Matthews: Trotsky comes off like a, a college professor, like that kid you wanted to beat up on the schoolyard...
Brooks: ...Right, you don't feel like, "OK, this guy can protect me."
Dowd: He looks foreign. Trotsky looks like a German intellectual, a Jew maybe, but still...
Brooks: ...And that makes people uncomfortable, he thinks he's smarter than you, and the average Russian doesn't like that. He's the elite, he's some sort of rootless cosmopolitan,...
Matthews: ...Ooh, that's a good one there, wouldn't be surprised to see Stalin's people picking that one up on Monday!
Klein: Yesterday I spoke to a consultant, and this guy's good, I mean real salt-of-the-earth like, plainspoken, helped engineer the victory in Belorussia, and you know what he said to me? He said Trotsky "represents the Mariinsky Ballet wing of the Communist Party."
Dowd: Voters aren't comfortable with the Wiemar intellectual types. It just doesn't play in the Red states.
Matthews: You're absolutely right, as you always are. And unfortunately we're outta time with our panel, so for my guests, Maureen Dowd, Joe Klein, Dave Brooks, as always I'm Chris Matthews, thanks for joining us and goodnight!