Matthews' hypothetical suburbanites: Wife wants woman president; husband cares about finances

On the October 21 edition of the NBC-syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, while discussing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) proposal to roll back a portion of the Bush tax cuts to pay for her health insurance plan, host Chris Matthews stated: "I think it's time for me to get in trouble again. ... I'm thinking about a woman who lives in the suburbs; she may not work outside the home. They're talking around election time -- the husband and the wife." Matthews, speaking first in the voice of the hypothetical wife, said: " 'I sort of like this Hillary, the first woman president. She's pro-choice.' And the husband says, 'You know, dear, you know, this is going to kill our tax bracket. You know that tuition thing we pay every couple of years for the kids, every year, we can't do that if we get a higher tax bracket. We have to pay more money.' " Matthews then asked Washington Post Writers Group syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker: "So, could the tax issue -- Hillary's threat to raise taxes -- throw a lot of women and men from the suburbs back into the Republican column?"

From the October 21 edition of the NBC-syndicated The Chris Matthews Show:

MATTHEWS: I think it's time for me to get in trouble again. Kathleen, I'm thinking about a woman who lives in the suburbs; she may not work outside the home. They're talking around election time -- the husband and the wife -- you know, she says, "I sort of like this Hillary, the first woman president. She's pro-choice." And the husband says, "You know, dear, you know, this is going to kill our tax bracket. You know that tuition thing we pay every couple of years for the kids, every year, we can't do that if we get a higher tax bracket. We have to pay more money." So, could the tax issue -- Hillary's threat to raise taxes -- throw a lot of women and men from the suburbs back into the Republican column? Am I being too tricky here?

PARKER: Yeah, you may be too tricky. First of all, I don't know what your assumption is here that I would know about women in the suburbs who don't work.

[laughter]

PARKER: I don't have any recent poll material.

MATTHEWS: Those club members that come in, you know, late in the afternoon.

PARKER: Oh, those guys. Yeah, well, nobody wants to pay more taxes, let's face it. But -- and, yeah, I think it's not helpful for Hillary at this point to say that. And you don't necessarily need -- there are other ways to go about this health care issue. I mean, what if one of these Republicans would sort of cut through the clutter and say, "Look, I'm going to give you your own money to buy health care, and I'm not going to tax that money," that would be a whole new scenario and a different talking point for people, and that, I think, has a lot of power.

—J.M.