All those rumors circulating about Chris Matthews running for Pennsylvania senate? Well they might be true. Or they might not be, so nothing new on that front. However, Chris has apparently been shopping around for a house in PA, and has been asking advisers whether he should step down from his Hardball post before his contract expires in June.

Then again, all this "speculation" from "operatives" within the Democratic party might just be leaked by Matthews' own team, hoping MSNBC will fight for him to stay and give him a better re-up contract, which he's in the middle of this week. If Chris is trying to use his departure as leverage, he might as well change his name to Plaxico Burress, because he's shooting himself in the foot.

At one recent meeting, he was advised that if he truly intends to run, he should resign from the network as soon as possible.

“We talked about the value of doing this now and six months from now. I advocated that he do this as soon as possible,” the operative said. “It’s the MSNBC stuff that’s going to jam him up. I said, 'If you want to be a U.S. senator, step up and get into the race.'”

If Matthews is serious about running, some within the network hope he commits to the Pennsylvania Senate race sooner rather than later. Otherwise, his nightly presence on “Hardball” provides easy fodder to critics fueling the narrative that MSNBC is in the tank for the Democratic party.

Haha. Because they really need Matthews remaining at MSNBC to keep that argument afloat.