Though multiple polls showed that he could compete closely with endangered Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter, word has it that Chris Matthews will not be running in 2010.

Chris Matthews, the host of the MSNBC program "Hardball," told his staff on Wednesday night that he would not run for the Senate in 2010 from Pennsylvania.

For much of the last year, Mr. Matthews had been considering entering the Senate race as a Democrat in his home state at the same time he was renegotiating his contract with NBC News. He had attended several meetings that had included Pennsylvania representatives as well as some major fund-raisers in the Democratic Party.

But Mr. Matthews, who was once a top aide to the House speaker, Tip O'Neill of Massachusetts, and ran for Congress as a Democrat in 1974, never formally declared himself a candidate, a decision which would have forced him out of his position at MSNBC.

The New York Times report at least alludes to the assumption that this was a contractual ploy by Matthews, whom MSNBC had been trying to make accept a massive pay cut -- from $5 million per year to $1 million per year -- but who now appears to be on stronger footing with his employer vis a vis future salary. I always half thought that Matthews would decide based on this year's Minnesota Senate election, that if comedian and radio host Al Franken could win a Senate seat, so too could a garish television pundit. Apparently this wasn't the case, however.

This doesn't mean, of course, that the Democrats' shot at winning in Pennsylvania is diminished, because in fact it may be enhanced despite Matthews' presumable ability to self-fund to a great extent. A handful of Democratic House members, including Allyson Schwartz and Patrick Murphy, have publicly thought about the race, as have others. And while perhaps the strongest potential candidate, Governor Ed Rendell, will not challenge his friend Specter (whom he worked with for years in the Philadelphia DA's office), the Democrats nevertheless have what appears to be their best opportunity in years to knock off Specter -- that is unless Specter is defeated in a Republican primary.