MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews made perfectly clear he is over the moon with the newly "authentic" and "relatable" Hillary Clinton, beguiled by her jokes the other day at a South Carolina Democratic women's event about how she's been dying her hair for years and so won't go gray in the White House.

What's more, Matthews's roundtable guests on his May 28 program seemed to agree that Hillary was hitting her stride as a personable candidate comfortable in her own skin, all of them, that is, save for Republican political strategist Liz Mair, who offered that Hillary's gotten only slighter better on the campaign trail and hinted that perhaps she's feeling her oats because she has no credible contender giving her a run for her money in the primary race:

LIZ MAIR: I mean, candidly, I have a different interpretation on what we saw of Hillary recently-- CHRIS MATTHEWS: That's why you're here. MAIR: Yeah, I don't think she-- Thank you. I don't think that this is somebody who comes off as being real or authentic. Like, OK, maybe it's a small improvement, but given how much she was sort of the liberal equivalent of Mitt Romney in terms of being so scripted and so like, you know, unmovable and static and very almost robotic, it's such a minor difference to me that I just think she's going to have a long way to go with a lot of people. MATTHEWS: We disagree. I think she's been great. [...] MATTHEWS: Jeb's at 10 percent. Jeb's at 10 percent right now. Hillary's at 80! MAIR: He's also, he's also in a primary field that is packed with other plausible contenders. She's in a primary field with Bernie Sanders. There's a reason that those numbers look different. But to your point about does she look any worse -- MATTHEWS: Before you put down Bernie Sanders, let me put him up against a couple of the guys. Ben Carson, is he going to be president of the United States? MAIR: No. MATTHEWS: Is Ted Cruz going to be president of the United States? MAIR: I don't think so. MATTHEWS: There are a bunch of them that don't really look like they're heading to the Oval Office. MAIR: OK, but then let's go ahead and compare Bernie Sanders to Marco Rubio. Let's go ahead and compare him to Chris Christie. Let's go ahead and compare -- MATTHEWS: Well, how about Martin O'Malley? PERRY BACON: Martin O'Malley is a more real candidate. I disagree with you Chris a little bit -- MAIR: You cannot say that the Democratic field is comparable.

Of course, there was no persuading Matthews, who has all but transferred his lovin' feelings for Barack Obama to being weak in the knees for Hillary. Here's his closing "Let Me Finish" commentary (emphases mine):