Philly native and proud papa to a Penn sophomore, Chris Matthews won’t challenge Arlen Spector for his senate seat next year, the New York Times reports.  (And the story was reported by the NYT’s television biz reporter rather than someone from the politics desk, MediaLOL.)  Whether Matthews was ever seriously considering a run is still unclear: though his ego is certainly large enough to give birth to delusions of granduer and a “political calling,” he may just have been playing “hardball” (heh) with NBC execs to get his contract renewed.  See ya at Parents’ Weekend ’09, Mr. Matthews!

Penn got a little shoutout in the mother of all gossip columns yesterday, Page Six.  Check it out:

An avowed Clinton lover who was sitting next to Matthews reports: “He was in business class wearing a red baseball hat that said Penn on the back, and the fat [bleep] fell asleep on the train and snored with his mouth open.”

Matthews was on the Acela from Philadelphia to Washington, presumably a trip he makes pretty often, since he is originally from the Philadelphia area and has a daughter who attends Penn.  Matthews is a crazy ranting lunatic, but because he’s a liberal rather than someone in the O’Reilly tradition, we find him sort of endearing.  And yeah, he’s also supposedly a misogynist, but hey, he wears a Penn hat!  Go Quakers!

Thanks to the friend/tipster/DP columnist/worst-subletter-ever who called our attention to the P6 item!