Matthews will play California ‘Hardball’

As Californians ponder pulling the plug on Gov. Gray Davis, many national pundits have been cracking wise about the Golden State’s latest crackup. But at least one prominent talk-show host, Chris Matthews, thinks that California’s shaky politics make it the place to be this fall, and is temporarily moving his act west to investigate the tremors.

Beginning this week, Matthews will broadcast his hourlong MSNBC show “Hardball With Chris Matthews” from California every weeknight up through the gubernatorial recall election on Oct. 7. He’ll split most of his time between Los Angeles and San Francisco, with a side trip to cover a scheduled Sept. 17 debate at Cal State Sacramento.

California’s recall initiative has become a national and even global story, and the main reason for TV’s interest is obvious to all.

“It’s about Arnold [Schwarzenegger],” Matthews said in a phone interview last week. “I’ll be honest. I don’t know if anybody else is being honest this week, but I am.”

But Matthews believes there are other reasons why the electoral imbroglio makes the state an important national bellwether, not a national laughingstock. California, he said, is at the center of some of “the hottest issues in the country,” including immigration, affirmative action and taxpayer revolts.

“Maybe it’s sort of a litmus test,” Matthews said. “What are we going to learn out there about the country’s mood -- anti-establishment, reaction to big interests, reaction to celebrity?”

A former Washington bureau chief for the San Francisco Examiner, Matthews is well-versed in California’s political history and key players. While he said that Gov. Davis commands bipartisan dislike, he thinks the recall effort may be part of a broader electoral cycle.

“If there hadn’t been the energy problem in California, if you hadn’t had all this daily fear factor about the deficit, all of this sort of coming together, I think people would say, ‘Yeah, let the system roll on; there’s nothing we can do about it, it’s the same system that elected the other people out there, we’ll live with it another 20 years,’ ” he said. “There’s almost a Jeffersonian revolution that’s going on.”