`Hardball' host throws tough stuff at Dean
By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 12/3/2003
CAMBRIDGE -- It's nearly 5 o'clock -- two hours before airtime -- and MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, Vice President for Primetime Programming Phil Griffin, and producers Kerri Forrest and Rani Kahle are in Room 727 at the Charles Hotel, devising a plan for turning a 60-minute interview with Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean into good and important television.
Matthews, whose tommy-gun speaking style is as pronounced off air as it is on camera, seems convinced Dean's success has turned the fiery antiwar candidate into a more cautious tactician. And during Monday's live show from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, he plans on testing that theory.
"I think he's a candidate who thinks he's crested. He'll be totally safe. He'll be Mondale-ized," Matthews says, thinking aloud questions to gauge Dean's willingness to confront Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon on Mideast policy. "I want to know whether he's a caver or a fighter."
Matthews's "Hardball" interviews with the Democratic presidential hopefuls represent a happy marriage of mutual interests between MSNBC and Harvard's Institute of Politics. Earlier this year, the IOP extended invitations to all the presidential candidates. "We had some verbal commitments, but really we didn't lock anybody in," says IOP official William White.
Then, according to White, Senator Edward Kennedy suggested the institute find a media partner. There were some discussions with PBS, but the deal was struck with Matthews, a former visting fellow at the IOP. And Harvard became the home of "Hardball: A Battle for the White House."
White says the Democrats are eager for such a forum because the candidates struggle to get a word in during those crowded TV debates. "This is probably 45 minutes of exchange," he says, noting that White House contenders ought to be able to "hold their own" against the aggressive Matthews.
At the Charles Hotel, Matthews is plotting to provoke Dean into a confrontation with one of his party's icons by asking whether his candidacy is aimed only at Bush or at the broader Washington culture of "caving, compromise, and corruption" that includes the last Democratic president. "I want him to get in a war with Clinton here," Matthews says.
By 6 p.m., Harvard's John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum (with a capacity of about 850) is rapidly filling with students, dignitaries, and political junkies. There's a palpable sense of expectation in the air.
"You've gotta be pretty sharp with Chris Matthews," says comedian Jimmy Tingle, who showed up for the event. "You've gotta be on your game."
Dean comes by for an early walk-through and gets a word of advice -- "be natural, be yourself" -- from IOP director and former Clinton secretary of agriculture Dan Glickman. "That's what politics is all about -- political theater," Glickman says.
In a nearby office, Griffin lays out his hopes for the evening. "The only way this works is if there's a real conversation," he says. "I want it to be revealing." As an executive at MSNBC -- which lags in the ratings race behind rivals CNN and Fox News Channel -- he stresses how vital the election is to the cable outlet. "Chris Matthews is the political face of MSNBC. We're going into a political year, and this is going to be a real opportunity," Griffin says. "We've got to dazzle them here."
At about 6:45, Matthews comes out to warm up the crowd. "There's a buzz in the room tonight," he says, glancing at the standing-room-only audience.
At 7 o'clock it's showtime, and Matthews begins putting Dean through his paces. On the Middle East, Dean acknowledges the "special relationship" between the United States and Israel, but favors a stronger US role as a broker with "the confidence of both sides" in the peace process. When Matthews tries to get him to take a shot at Clinton, Dean parries the question and moves on.
But on one issue, Matthews -- grilling Dean with prosecutorial zeal about his military deferment for a bad back -- scores. Boring in relentlessly during an exchange about Dean's appearance before the draft board, Matthews finally asks: "Were you hoping to be deferred?"
"Yes," is Dean's terse one-word answer.
Inside the production truck that functions as the broadcast nerve center, the consensus is that this is the headline-making moment. "He got him to say he wanted to be deferred," says Griffin with excitement.
At 8:20, nearly a half-hour after "Hardball" has ended, Matthews hammers home that point during a discussion with MSNBC anchor Amy Robach.
"A big night here," says Matthews, offering a post-mortem on his faceoff with Dean. "I thought he was pretty candid in describing how he went about getting his deferment . . . a lot more honest than Clinton ever was."
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