Ten questions for Hardball’s Chris Matthews

Fiery Chris Matthews has been back in his hometown covering the Pennsylvania Democratic presidential primary for MSNBC, which televises his show,

Hardball,

weekdays at 5 and 7 p.m. This weekend, he attended his 45th class reunion at La Salle College High School in Glenside, and he and Keith Olbermann will be the anchor for MSNBC's primary coverage tomorrow night.

Matthews interrupted his schedule to answer 10 questions about himself and cable news.

1) Are you really going to run for the Senate against Arlen Specter in 2010?

Where do you get that from? I am still honoring the commitment I made in 1987 to cover politics, not engage in it. Since boyhood, I've had a reverence for the Senate. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Advise and Consent, I loved those movies. But I've got a commitment to journalism that's serious, and I cover politics, and I committed myself in 1987 not to engage in it again.

2) What was the main factor that caused you to lose your 1974 congressional primary run against then four-term Rep. Joshua Eilberg in Northeast Philadelphia?

I announced about two months before. I knew the odds were well against me, but I got 22 percent of the vote. . . . That was right in the middle of Watergate, a year that I thought that people should stand up against the abuses of the political establishment. I had 400 high-school students working with me in a clean, reform campaign. The Inquirer did a really nice piece. I think the headline was, "Fourth District Candidate Refuses All Money Gifts." We'd stand out on The Boulevard with signs asking people voting for us to honk and wave. We had a band. It was pretty uphill.

3) How did being raised in Nicetown and Somerton get you where you are today?

I wrote about this in Time magazine this week. My grandfather was ward secretary to James Tate, who was the mayor, and very active in local Democratic politics. Watching him, we were always talking politics when I grew up. I loved my grandfather. The Peace Corps changed me. I got used to living in a bigger world. I still loved the idea of politics, and Washington was a lure for me. I looked at the Senate with such romance. I got a great job there, then I worked as presidential speech writer with Jimmy Carter, and six years every day with the Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, battling Ronald Reagan.

4) You're 62, and your contract with MSNBC runs out a year from June. Why wouldn't you just hang up the bullhorn, and go fishing?

Ha. Ha. Ha. The money is enormous. I'd probably talk politics if I wasn't' on the air. Mike Wallace is, what, 90?. These people just keep doing this stuff. It's not like it's a real heavy-lifting job. It's talking about what you want to talk about, and old men love to talk about politics.

5) Who is the greatest TV newsman of all time, and how are you like him?

My hero has always been Eric Sevareid. He was one of the Murrow boys in London in World War II. I remember how extraordinary he was in 1968, that was such a tumultuous year, he would be on with Cronkite and do a 90-second commentary about the world, and he was big-picture and grand and I always thought that's what I would be, but I guess I'm more loquacious. He was Nordic, Scandinavian, more reserved.

6) Why do you talk so loud and seem not to let people finish their sentences?

Because I do let them finish their sentences, maybe not their sentences, but finish their thoughts. The honest answer is I have to work on that. I never figured out how Ted Koppel was able to keep the conversation going without interrupting. Sometimes people just want to hold the mike and reduce the number of answers. They sometimes don't have a comma. . . . It would cease to be an interview. It's my style, I guess, not for everyone, off-putting for some, bracing for others. I love the way that you press them, that you push them, try to get an answer. It's the way people talk around dinner tables, in taprooms. I'm not entirely patient, but the reason I interrupt is that I'm excited about what I heard. I may need more training. I don't know. I don't speak loudly, just with a kind of insistence. I am trying to create an atmosphere. John McLaughlin compares the style to a tummler. That's a Yiddish word, a guy in the Catskills who used to get all the ladies singing and dancing.

7) Was it exciting to be the cover boy on last Sunday's New York Times magazine, even though it portrayed you as something of an egotist?

- I don't know what it was about. My attitude was, 'We'll see.' You never know what the impact will be. The fact that you're talking to me. That fact that Colbert talked to me about that Senate thing, which he saw in there. I just have no idea what to expect. Phillip Seymour Hoffman would say in Charlie Wilson's War, "We'll see. We'll see." So, we'll see. It's a very Zen attitude for me. I'm trying to grow into Zen. Ha. Ha. Ha. I'm trying to be grander. Life has a lot of complexities and unpredictabilities.

8) Who watches the cable news talk shows, and why?

I have the most amazing audience. I meet them. They're very intimate. 'Chris,' they say. It sometimes amazes me. They chat as if I was their cousin. In Washington, guys who drive limos, doormen, West Africans, people from the Middle East, Latinos. They watch shows like Hardball to learn language, culture, politics. Print people, politicians at 5. The audience are older at 7, but the demos are really good lately. People who love politics. People who read the newspapers. I don't think it's entry-level politics. I think it's the middle to advanced course. . . . Some of the other guys offer a different product. They offer a prescription as to what the truth is. I think I'm a little harder to read, more of an agitator than an advocate. . . .

9) Is Fox News really fair and balanced, and why does it beat you in the ratings?

Roger has brilliantly put together a counterprogram to everything else that was on television when it started. Everything was establishment liberal, and Fox is a challenge to that. It balances off what they say is mainstream journalism. I don't know if was fair and balanced if it were the only news you got. Ha. Ha. . . . Fox offers itself up as an alternative to prime-time television themes. That's a big, fat niche, and they've done a great job of talking to the people who want to hear their message.

10) How do you find Philadelphia these days?

When I drive up here or am driven up the Parkway, I'm in Paris. I love this city. It's Paris, the library and the old courthouse where my father used to work, Rittenhouse Square. These downtown neighborhoods are so pretty at this time of year. The only time I went downtown when I was a kid was to see Dr. Foxman, the orthodontist.