Chris Matthews held an episode of his Hardball College Tour at which he had a “conversation” with Bernie Sanders. Just like Republicans in Congress, Matthews peppered Sanders with a bunch of questions, but hardly gave him a chance to reply. In fact Chris Matthews was giving a speech, and Bernie Sanders was merely his foil.

I have an idea for how Bernie could have taken this as an opportunity to demonstrate one way for the political revolution to gain its voice, and start to control things. I’ll start my script with the actual words of the event. Then, at the appropriate moment, I will switch to the way it could have gone.

Here is the actual dialog as best as I can transcribe it. There is a lot of one person talking over the other, which is hard to transcribe. You will have to look at the videos, yourself to get a full understanding of how overbearing Chris Matthews is.

Chris Matthews: First, next January 20th and you can walk up to the senate you could you meet with the leadership and you say I have a program here. I want up to free, I mean government-funded, tuition for public universities. There’s things I want done on Social Security to increase benefits there’s things I want done on health care so it could become like Medicare for life. You’ve got very strong positions and Mitch McConnell looks at you the way he looked at President Obama and says forget about it.

Bernie Sanders: And then you know when I say, “Hey Mitch, take a Look out the window. There are a million young people out there who don’t want to be in debt for half their life for the crime of going to college and if you want to antagonize those million people and lose your job, Mitch. If you don’t want to lose your job you better start listening to what we have to say.” That’s the point. That’s how change takes place.

CM: How do you squeeze a guy like him.

BS: It’s not him, Mitch is, I know Mitch McConnell. He’s a smart…

CM: How do you squeeze 60 senators? You need 60 senators. You need 60 Senators.

BS: Let me tell you this. Absolutely, positively 100%. If we rally young people in this country to say, “You know what? Germany, Scandinavia, other countries, they have free tuition in public colleges and universities.” I have been all over this country because I talked to kids thirty, forty, fifty, $100,000 in debt, paying a huge percentage of their income. OK, young people stand up and say we are sick and tired of it. We don’t want to go into debt for our whole lives just because we got a college education. You know what? We’ll win that fight immediately. But the trick is not to appeal to Mitch McConnell. It’s to say, “Mitch, take a look at your emails coming in …

CM: What evidence do you have you have that this has worked for you? Have you increased the turnout in these elections? Have you increased the turnout in these elections? You’ve…

BS: We’ve done, look…

CM: You know, have you as a senator have you been able to get 60 votes of senators for anything? Have you ever been able to do this? What you are talking about doing.

BS: What I am …

CN: When you say you can get 60 Senators …

BS: I am not the President of the the … What I am saying, Chris…

CN: But what evidence do you have that you can do it?

BS: What evidence do I have? The evidence that I have is the only way changes in this country that’s the only way change is about in this country. That’s what the civil rights movement was about. That’s what the women’s movement, the gay movement. That’s what it is about.

CN: It’s necessary, but is it sufficient?

BS: That’s the way …

CN: But is it sufficient to get it done? These guys run in their own states with their own conservative constituencies that will say fine Bernie Sanders a liberal President ..

BS: Let me give you an example …

CN: He’s a progressive. I am not one who will vote against him..

BS: Let me give you a good example …

CN: How do you know you can do it?

BS: How do I know? I don’t know anything. I think we do the best that we can do. We try, but

BS: You look at it inside the beltway. I am not an inside the beltway guy. I am an outside the belt way guy …

CN: But the people who vote on taxes are inside the beltway ..

BS: and those people are going to vote the right way when millions of people demand that they vote the right way. On this issue I have no doubt that as president of the United States I can rally young people and their parents to say that if Germany does it, Scandinavia does it, countries around the world do it, we can do it and yes we bailed out Wall Street …

CN: Can you [inaudible]…

BS: It is Wall Street’s time to help the middle class.

CN: The next Senate leader, Democratic leader, probably Chuck Schumer of New York. Can you deliver his vote tonight? can you tell me one Senator that is gonna follow you for these proposals? They’re all good, decent proposals. In fact they are moral proposals. Tell me the votes. Who’s going to vote with you. You say I will give you 60 votes.

BS: I know Chuck very, very well…

CN: Is he going to vote with you?

BS: Well, call him up. I don’t know. …

CN: Give us one vote? You say I will give you 60 votes and pass
it …

BS: Chris, Chris …

CN: and you can’t give me one vote.

BS: I didn’t say …

CN: One vote. Your vote, but your not going to be in the Senate anymore.

BS: I didn’t say I couldn’t give you one vote. Look what you’re not catching on. I have to say this respectfully. You are a nice guy. You are missing the point. Alright, you are missing the point. if you look at politics today is a zero sum total. If you are looking at sixty-three percent of the American people not voting, eighty percent of young people not voting, billionaires buying elections – you’re right! I’m not looking at that world. …

CN: How’s that going to change on the day you are in office? You won’t have a Supreme Court on your side.

BS: What I will have is millions of people …

CN: You are going to need 60 votes to get a Supreme Court nominee.

BS: OK, you are going around in circles.

Now here is where I would start rewriting the script.

BS: Chris, I know how to fix the problem we are having here. Let me give you a demonstration right here, on how the political revolution works.

[Bernie Sanders turns to the audience and says]

BS: Are you going to just sit there and listen to this guy try to outshout me, and cut off any ability I have to explain my plans? Or are you going to help me by shouting “Let Bernie Speak” very time Chris tries to cut me off? It is time for you to tell the powers that be that you aren’t going to take this anymore. You don’t have to be a passive audience to the travesty going on here. Let’s hear it for a two sided conversation.