Chuck Todd Profile…

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz profiles NBC/MSNBC Political Director Chuck Todd. This is a noteworthy interview because Todd isn’t one you would expect to get a full blown profile write up like this in The Post. Nothing against Todd himself, who knows his stuff, but he’s not a “name” that one would normally consider for a Kurtz NBC profile. If I said “NBC/MSNBC Politics”, one would logically think of Russert or Matthews or Mitchell or Gregory. But not Todd. Therefore because it is Todd it means NBC is looking to raise Todd’s profile more as the political season heats up. Which makes this a must read article…

On a cable channel packed with such opinionated personalities as Olbermann and Chris Matthews, Todd stands out by not being flamboyant. While others are getting punch-drunk on polls, New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley observed, Todd is “the designated driver of MSNBC’s political coverage.”

He is accustomed to the role. During his boyhood in Miami, Todd recalls, his conservative father and a liberal cousin often got sloshed and argued about politics.

Todd was 16 when his dad died. Strapped for cash, Todd was accepted by George Washington University on a music scholarship — he played the French horn — and pursued a double major in politics.

Longtime friend Andrew Flagel, now George Mason University’s dean of admissions, says Todd had phenomenal recall, “whether it had to do with every sports fact you could ever have at your fingertips or every congressional race. He was the Jimmy the Greek of politics. We’d be out at one of the bars in Georgetown or Foggy Bottom and he’d end up with 20 people around us, arguing about either politics or sports, and he’s emceeing the discussion.”