Chris Matthews: GOP will go 'hard right' and nominate Rand Paul in 2016

Wednesday on MSNBC's "Hardball," host Chris Matthews predicted that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) will be the Republican nominee for president.

"I believe the Republican Party is going to go hard right in 2016," he said. "It's going to run someone from the hard right wing of the party, something it hasn't done since 1980."

Matthews theorized that the Republican field currently looks like the Democratic field did in 2008, when voters chose then-Sen. Barack Obama for the nomination over now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Matthews theorized that Democrats were fed up with the Iraq War and had lost a measure of faith in the party mainstays.

"I believe the Republican base will do the same in 2016," posited Matthews. "They put up with George Bush the first, put up with Bob Dole, were deeply disappointed with the big-spending George W and last year, again, by Mitt Romney and are now going to come loaded for bear for the race for 2016. So I predict the hard right is gonna take over the Republican party in 2016 and the nomination is going to Rand Paul."

"You watch," he assured viewers. "This is what I do for a living."

Watch the video, embedded via MSNBC, below:

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