Call it the price of success, or something less flattering, but Chuck Todd is now just mailing it in by simply retelling what the serious people in Washington tell him. In this case it's "very senior Democrats" who are "concerned" what sort of message an Al Franken win in Minnesota would send to the electorate.

Joe Scarborough thinks this is all great, of course, that they really don't want "[Franken] up there anyway", that "they're fine with 59", and that "some Democrats just want to keep the comedian up in Minnesota."

Todd picks up that ball and runs with it, adding that "had Democrats had a better candidate in both seats [Georgia also] both would already be over. They would have beaten Norm Coleman with any generic Democrat in Congress."

The message so alarming to "senior Democrats," evidently, is that everybody in the Hollywood Left would soon be running for office. As Todd mentions Tim Robbins, Sean Penn and Alec Baldwin, Scarborough laughs out loud at the prospect.

This is all very strange coming from a party that gave us a Hollywood B-movie actor as President in Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzeneggar as Governator in California.

One wonders what Chuck Todd will have to say if/when Chris Matthews runs for Senate in Pennsylvania. Although not a Hollywood Lefty, Matthews would be coming from a similar place in the media as Al Franken. It's just that Matthews happens to be a colleague of Todd's at MSNBC ...