Thursday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” anchor Chris Matthews said the presidency of Barack Obama “was so thrilling,” adding, “It’s still thrilling to me.”

Matthews said, “The historic nature of Barack Obama running in ‘08 and ‘12 was so dramatic, I can understand why people of color who don’t normally vote, think it’s all BS or whatever, showed up because it was so thrilling. I mean, I was thrilled. And I get thrilled thinking about what happened in ‘08. It’s still thrilling to me. It is thrilling what he said in ‘04 at the convention in Boston, Obama. But you’re not always going to have a thrilling, charismatic African American person of either gender or any background to come on and say I’m the candidate for president. Does it take that? Or can Elizabeth Warren running with say Buttigieg or something, could they excite the inner cities, could they excite people of color to the degree you’re talking about that needs to win?”

In 2008, after watching Obama speak, Matthews said, “I felt this thrill going up my leg.”

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