Matthews Rants: GOP Needs to 'Pay A Price' or Democrats Will 'Get Their Asses Handed to Them'

On the 14 March 2014 edition of Hardball, Chris Matthews continued his tirade targeted at Democrats from the previous day, in the wake of the party's loss in the special election in Florida on Tuesday. The MSNBC host bemoaned how supposedly, "Republicans say, we've got to cut entitlements....And yet, they don't pay a price for it politically. I'm determined that they pay a price for their words."

Matthews added that "Democrats better be focusing on what Republicans are promising to do – on issues like choice; on issues like voter suppression – or they're going to get their asses handed to them this November." He later zeroed in on how Republicans apparently took advantage of Democratic congressional candidate Alex Sink's "reasonable" approach during her campaign:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: ...Alex Sink went into an election in Florida this week – the big test election – she went in there with an idea of compromise; let's work across the aisle; let's try to get things....She also said ObamaCare isn't perfect. It's got to be fixed. I'm not going to hold the line and say everything's great. But that point of view, which was so darn reasonable and good for the country's long haul, is exploited on the other side – because they come in like – like demolition derby. They say we're getting rid of everything. You people are all weak. We got a strong view;  back to religious values; get rid of all government; and we hate Obama. That's simple, black and white – what you call black and white, Manichaean view of the world – seems to beat the softer, more reasonable view of the world that you got from Alex Sink.