I should never flip the dial to MSNBC when Chris Matthews is on because he's insane, but alas, I occasionally do.

Today, following the Bill Cunningham flap, Matthews is trying to figure out which way John McCain should play the radical right: should he pander to them to get their votes, or triangulate against them to get moderate votes? Here's his math:

I think McCain can pick up three votes for very vote he loses on the right, because I think you're right, the right will vote and I also think those suburbs are looking for a candidate still. That's why we keep hearing about Bloomberg.

"Matthews math" is interesting because it's the complete opposite of "Rove Math." Rove's formula for winning elections is to fire up the rightwing base to a fever pitch so they turn out in overwhelming numbers and outnumber the Democrats. Rove couldn't care less about voters in the middle because he just doesn't think there are very many, and he figures those few will split their votes and cancel each other out.

"Rove math" worked in 2004 because the rightwing base was fired up by anti-gay marriage referenda in 13 states, including the decisive state of Ohio. "Rove math" did not work in 2006 because the rightwing base was demoralized by Iraq, Katrina, and GOP corruption, epitomized by the Duke Cunningham and the late-breaking Mark Foley scandals. The rightwing base didn't vote for Democrats in 2006 - they simply stayed home, just as Democrats did in 1994 when Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolutionaries won Congress for the first time in 40 years.

"Matthews math" assumes two things: (1) that the right will always turn out to vote, and (2) that there is a large group of suburban swing voters who will embrace a Republican who trashes the right.

But (1) was proved false in 2006, when the right did not turn out, despite endless GOP fearmongering aimed at Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers, and Charlie Rangel.

And (2) is just a figment of Matthews' imagination for which there is absolutely no empirical evidence. Long before Rove and Bush came to Washington, progressive author Jim Hightower told everyone "there's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos."

Still, I hope against hope that John McCain will follow Matthews right over the political cliff...