Will Matthews play Hardball with Specter in 2010?

The rumor mill is in full force this week over the possibility that television host and Philadelphia native Chris Matthews will mount a 2010 U.S. Senate challenge against Republican Sen. Arlen Specter.

Appearing Monday night on The Colbert Report at the University of Pennsylvania, Matthews, who hosts MSNBC’s Hardball, when pressed by Colbert for an announcement responded, “Some kids want to be a fireman, I want to be a Senator.”

“There's a difference between being a celebrity and someone who works for the people. And it's a greater thing to work for the people than being on television,” said Matthews.

In a New York Times Magazine profile of the television host this week, the Times’ Mark Leibovich wrote that Matthews “thinks Specter has hung on way too long, he said, but running would require Matthews to give up a career he loves. Still, ‘I get a great feeling when I go home,’ he told me. ‘Is Thomas Wolfe right? Can you go home again?’”

Elected in 1980, Specter is the longest-serving U.S. Senator in Pennsylvania history.