The Man Who Makes Matthews Sweat

Dennis J. Kucinich avoided him. John F. Kerry jabbed with him at a distance.

But Phil Griffin, the executive producer of “Hardball” and an MSNBC vice-president, steps into the ring five days a week with his notoriously pugnacious star, Chris Matthews.

“The pre-show meeting is like a trainer might spar with his fighter,” Griffin says. “In Chris’ gut is so much information, but you have to get him to break a sweat before the show.”

Griffin gives up a few inches and more than a few pounds to Matthews, but it’s his job to get the big guy riled up. Rocky had Mickey; Matthews has Griffin.

Matthews’ schtick is impatience. He whines, shouts and questions away, cutting off guests when he gets bored of their answers.

On television or off television, there is an excitement and a constant fidgeting about Matthews that calls for a moderating influence—a Griffin.

Griffin and Matthews have been traveling to Harvard on Mondays this fall to broadcast “Hardball: Battle for the White House” live from the JFK Jr. Forum.

On Monday, before Democratic frontrunner Howard Dean took Matthews’ hotseat, the former Vermont governor’s 12-year-old niece waited for Matthews alongside her father in the hallway below the Forum. She wanted to know if the interviewer would go easy on her uncle. The big guy considered it for a moment, and then agreed.

The act of mercy might not have been apparent based on Matthews’ aggressive style of inquisition, but when he sat across from the diminutive Dean, it was clear that Matthews could have physically crushed Dean had he so desired.

That’s where Griffin comes in. His job is to ensure that this almost—but never actually—happens.

“I tell him to ease up here, push there. I moderate him. He trusts me,” says Griffin.

Although Griffin whips up his fighter at the prep session before the show, he has to rein him in during the show. Griffin’s is the voice in Matthews’ left earpiece offering advice sparingly throughout the show, and particularly during commercial breaks.

He warns Matthews about how much time he has. He suggests when to move on from a line of questioning and when to abandon it.

He keeps his fighter focused as best as he can from inside a giant truck in the parking lot.

The Trainer

If Matthews is a bruiser, Griffin is a marathoner.

A man given to smirking, but not shouting, Griffin expends no extraneous movements and he doesn’t let up during the show.

Balding and relatively quiet, Griffin will talk over his star in meetings—but not very often.

He urges his star to “go hard” much like a sports coach. And this love for sports—for his hometown Mets and Jets in particular—is close to the core of Griffin’s being.

He is a competitor whose conversation Monday night transitioned smoothly from the politics of presidential candidate Howard Dean to the acquisitions of baseball general manager Billy Bean.

This is no doubt responsible for the game-like atmosphere of Hardball.

When he’s not orchestrating a primetime news show, he is a runner, finishing a recent 10k at a respectable if not front-running 8:30 minutes per mile clip.

But like the best runners, he keeps up a constant mental motion.

At 3:30 p.m. he’s brainstorming questions and juggling the lineup for future guests. More than five hours later, after prepping for, managing and watching the Dean interviews, Griffin is still single-mindedly focused.

He engages Matthews in a quick debate about what could have been done better—where they could have pressed Dean harder.

At heart, Griffin is a strategy guy. He balks at the notion of trading his job for Matthews’.

“Everyone asks me that, but I like the big picture,” he says. “I like shaping them, making them better.”

Ringside

At 6:45 p.m. Griffin slides into his seat in the production truck alongside the director. He keeps his comments to a minimum during the hour-long show because he thinks Matthews performs best when he goes off script.

Hardball tries to prevent the candidates from “leaning on a standard talking point,” according to Griffin, but his is not a “gotcha show.”

“We’re not out to expose anyone,” he says. “We just want to see them as people. It’s fairly casual and informal, not the whole country watching.”

He says that Gephardt and Edwards have done the best so far because they had low expectations, but surprised people because “They came to play.”

The worst performance, he says, was turned in by a stiff candidate who stuck to prepared statements—but Griffin declined to name the guest.

“Chris doesn’t like that,” says Griffin.

At 6:55 p.m., minutes before the start of the Dean interview, which Griffin expected to get the largest television audience, Griffin seemed nervous. He sat with a dozen type-written questions and an unopened water bottle.

Jokes and smiles aside, his legs were pumping and ready to go as he sat in his seat.

The production manager, Rick Jefferson, wasn’t particularly excited.

“We’re all grizzled veterans at this point,” he says, noting that the production logistics were easy this time because they had broadcast from the same place five times before.

Still there was reason to be nervous, for even though Griffin is behind the scenes, it’s clear that Matthews and Griffin are in it together.

At the end of an intense back-and-forth exchange between Matthews and Dean about the candidate’s draft deferral, Dean finally admitted that he had been hoping for a deferral when he answered the draft notice with a letter from his orthopedist and x-rays of his bad back.

Matthews blurts out “thank you” as the show goes to commercial break, and Griffin smiles in the production truck, “Good job!”

The Meatlocker

These are the kinds of news segments that the staff at the pre-show meeting hopes for.

With fruit, cheese, crackers and lattes on the way, the staff gathers in a suite at the Charles Hotel just before 4:00 p.m. to chart out its hard questions and most importantly, to get the order right so that they flow without being predictable.

Matthews and his staff rifle through a dozen newspaper clippings, talking about the big stories of the day as they coordinate their questions on speakerphone with the home office in New York, which works off a more comprehensive set of notes.

Matthews’ eyes dart from side to side as he listens to proposals and seems ready to break in. The group debates the most dramatic, the most important, the most odd-ball questions they can use to spice up the show.

All the while, Matthews rocks back and forth in his chair. He cranes his neck. His eyes go left to right. All the while Matthews looks ready to go at it.

After about 15 minutes—just as the meeting is getting interesting—Matthews gives the sign to one of his people, who escorts The Crimson’s reporter from the room.

Matthews’ rapid-fire style of pitching questions manage to throw Dean off at points, not just with his draft deferral, but with such core positions as whether he supports right-to-work laws.

“I do, no wait, I don’t,” the candidate stumbles.

Some candidates find Matthews too abrasive.

Kucinich declined an offer to appear as a guest on the show, citing personal grievances against the host.

But Griffin brushed away this criticism.

“I’m surprised Kucinich has such thin skin,” Griffin says.

Dean, who is known for his temper, fared well tonight, at least according to Griffin.

The producer pulled out his favorite sports allusion.

“Dean came to play,” he says.

—Staff writer Jonathan P. Abel can be reached at abel@fas.harvard.edu.