Bad news for both of the "Chris Matthews For Senate" enthusiasts: the clear-haired shouting head "is expected to sign a long-term contract to remain as host of MSNBC's 'Hardball,'" Politico reports. After all his hollering about maybe leaving the show to run for the Senate —which was almost surely a negotiating tactic—"It's widely believed inside the network that Matthews will get a pay cut from his $5 million annual take." This man is an expert in the Machiavellian arts. [Politico]

Like a depressing microcosm of the problems afflicting the world at large, Miami Art Basel was a shadow of its former wild and ostentatious self and has drawn to a close, leaving debt, hangovers, and photos of Pamela Anderson's ass in its wake. Despite elaborate prevarication from certain onlookers, the combination of thinner crowds, a subdued mood, and desperate discounts left no one in any doubt that the art bubble has truly burst.

People across the political spectrum had mixed feelings about Tim Russert, the recently deceased former host of Meet The Press. But whether you thought he was the toughest interviewer in DC or a toadying cock-gobbler to power, you had to admit that he probably got his job based on a genuine zeal for reporting, rather than because he was some network exec's ideal of a telegenic newsman. Now that David Gregory has taken over the gig, we'll get to see the network-ideal-telegenic-gasbag type in action. Problem one: his insincere self-deprecation skills:

Hello Monday, why are you so cold? Yesterday you guys thought that the former teen pin-up now doing gay prons was maybe Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Hoo boy! That would be funny. Man of the House 2: Men of the House. Anyway, today we have a comedy dude who's secretly geigh and a singer about to get divorced (not Xtina).

Those annoying people who are always smiling and laughing? It turns out that the best option may not be to avoid them: According to researchers from Harvard and the University of California, happiness is genuinely contagious. Weirdly, it's not simply that someone's cheerful mood rubs off on you if you're in their company. The happiness levels of people up to three degrees away in your social network—whom you might not even know—influences your own. So go ahead and start cultivating the charmed and fortunate. Just don't tell any West Coasty types that their New Age babble about good vibes and the transferral of emotional energy might actually be true.

Sorry, fans of scandal-prone political dynasties: "The odds of Gov. Paterson choosing Caroline Kennedy to replace soon-to-be Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the US Senate are no better than 20-1, a source close to the governor said yesterday." [NYP]

How is the greeting card industry adjusting to the economic downturn? Designers are toning down the glitter ("That's just not the mindset anymore"), and sticking with more traditional colors, like deep reds and greens. Cards with "a lot of shopping bags or gifts piled high" are out. Most depressingly, tacky is back in big way: "The text is deliberately long-winded. Before, cards had shorter, snappier messages. 'Now people want longer copy,' says Rochelle Lulow, creative director of American Greetings' editorial studio. 'During difficult times, we see people wanting to connect on a deeper, emotional level that goes above and beyond.'" [WSJ]

♦ The Georgian mansion at 21 Beekman Place, which was owned by the the late William Rupp and has been at the center of an legal battle for years now, underwent its second price cut last week. Originally listed by Sharon Baum for $25 million in March, it's now down to $15 million. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
♦ Ron Tysoe, the former CFO and vice chairman of Federated Department Stores (now Macy's), has sold his 32nd-floor apartment at the Trump International for $6 million. [Cityfile]
♦ Opera singer Placido Domingo has paid $999,000 for a one-bedroom apartment at 425 East 58th Street. [Real Deal]
♦ Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony have put their Bel Air mansion on the market for $8.5 million. [LAT]

"Vanity Fair is taking over the Four Seasons Grill Room this morning... The magazine is shooting the power lunch hot spot and its regulars for an upcoming piece on the restaurant’s 50th anniversary. Among the regular customers expected to participate in the shoot are Blackstone Group founders Pete Peterson and Steve Schwartzman [sic]; designers Ralph Lauren, Zac Posen and Thom Browne; Martha Stewart; Aby Rosen; Peggy Siegel [sic]; Lazard CEO Bruce Wasserstein; Dolly Lenz; the Edgar Bronfmans, both Sr. and Jr.; former New York mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins; Georgette Mosbacher; Ed Lewis; Tim and Nina Zagat; Leonard Lauder of The Estée Lauder Cos.; Henry Kissinger, and gossips Richard Johnson and Liz Smith." [WWD]

Today is Ann Coulter's 47th birthday. Sadly, since it was only a couple of weeks ago that her jaw was wired shut after an accident, it's unclear if Coulter will get to blow out any candles or eat any birthday cake today. Others celebrating: Teri Hatcher is 44. Sinead O'Connor is turning 42. Lost's Dominic Monaghan is 32. Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is 34. The Allman Brothers' Gregg Allman turning 61. Mike Mussina is 40. David Carradine is 72. Jackass co-creator Jeff Tremaine is turning 42. And Kim Basinger is turning 55, although she probably won't be getting any warm birthday wishes from Alec Baldwin.

♦ Mary-Kate Olsen was "acting very oddly" during her stay in Miami for Art Basel. After getting into a fight with Kirsten Dunst at a party at the Delano on Wednesday night, MK—who "looked like she had not brushed her hair in a week"—spent the weekend drinking, chain-smoking, and hanging out with boyfriend Nate Lowman, which means she's probably not pregnant. [P6, P6]
♦ Lindsay Lohan went to a party for Milk without Samantha Ronson last week, where she was spotted nuzzling with Sean Penn. [Fox 411]
♦ Amy Winehouse's husband Blake Fielder-Civil is reportedly threatening to write a tell-all book about Winehouse unless she gives him $1.7 million in the divorce settlement. [NYP]

• Fran Drescher announced a run for Hillary Clinton's senate seat, on the basis of being "authentic and honest" and "getting a bill passed in Washington." Presumably having Anderson Cooper in the tank is a plus, too. Pray she's joking. [NYM]

"The media industries have shed more than 30,000 jobs in 2008, according to an Ad Age analysis of Department of Labor employment statistics and news reports." [Ad Age]

Fred Thomson was a hot Republican presidential candidate for about 10 minutes at the start of the primary cycle, thanks to the former senator's Law & Order gig and the fact that he didn't seem as scuzzy as Rudolph Giuliani or Mitt Romney (not hard). He hasn't had much to do since then, except campaign inconsequentially for John McCain, try to point out Al Gore to a team of hired Serbian snipers at a presidential debate (pictured) and think about having a loser TV show like Mike Huckabee. But now it sounds like he's turning into a sad, desperate man, renting out his condo for the inauguration, instead of admiring Michelle Obama's dress like a true American.

♦ Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain is tangling with the bank's board over a $10 million annual bonus he says he deserves for "saving" the firm and selling it to Bank of America. [Reuters]
♦ Ken Griffin's Citadel is closing up shop in Tokyo. [Bloomberg]
♦ UBS may be planning to shed another 4,500 jobs. [DB]
♦ Sam Zell's Tribune Co. has retained Lazard to assist the company with a possible bankruptcy filing. [WSJ]
♦ The outlook is increasingly grim for Wesley Edens' Fortress Investment Group: Shares have gone down more than 90 percent this year. [NYP]
♦ Plenty of problems also face Leon Black and his Apollo Management. [NYT]
♦ But it's been a good year for hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, despite the whole Ashley Dupre thing. [NYM]
♦ Stocks are expected to gain big today with the news of an auto bailout. [CNN]

Perhaps the imploding real estate market is getting under the skin of Julian Schnabel, the artist turned film director turned high-end condo developer. The auteur's movies are widely admired and his smashed-plate paintings were at least big in the 1980s, but his hot pink ("Pompeii red") Palazzo Chupi has turned into a controversial icon for angry neighbors, gauche celebrity speculators and tumbling prices. And though Chupi didn't come up during Schnabel's 60 Minutes interview, the thin-skinned artist didn't take this blessing to heart, instead lashing out at Morley Shafer for daring to ask about art critic Robert Hughes, one of his most prominent detractors.

Photographer Steve Schapiro needs a hook to sell his $700 special edition book about the Godfather movie. The behind-the-scenes pictures (including James Caan wired up with explosive squibs, left), 1,000-copy print run and author signatures might not be enough, and lord knows the economy isn't going to help matters. So he struck a deal to excerpt Mario Puzo's 1972 book on the making of the film. This excerpt was, in turn, excerpted in the Daily Mail this weekend, and the part where the late crooner Frank Sinatra screams at Puzo in a restaurant is the talk of the blogs, 35 years after it surfaced in Time. It's a worthy tale.

Memo to luxury good companies: Now is not the time to start cheapening your image or, worse yet, ripping off your wealthiest customers, like Bulgari seems to be doing. As the rich try to seem fashionably frugal, thus damaging the economy for everyone, it seems they are buying fewer emerald-and-sapphire-encrusted watches. Bulgari is loath to reduce prices — "that is totally wrong" for the brand, the CEO tells the Times — but to save money it is cutting corners on its products. Which, as Anna Wintour recently told everyone, is a dumb idea.

Layoffs and dividend cuts apparently aren't enough to get the New York Times Company out of the financial woods. The Times reports the company plans to mortgage or sell (and lease back) part of its shiny new Renzo Piano headquarters building, which cost half a billion dollars to build. It assigned Cushman & Wakefield the tricky task of finding someone willing to take a $225 million chance on a company whose debt is rated junk in a down market. The Times Company's timing is, once again, atrocious: The price of its old headquarters building tripled between when the company sold it in 2004 and three years later, when the newspaper finally moved into its new headquarters. That extra $350 million would sure come in handy now.

No, it wasn't Andrew Sullivan or Michael Wolff who said it: Nobel literature prize winner Jean-Marie Gustave just said in his Nobel lecture to the Swedish Academy, "if the Internet had existed at the time, perhaps Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded - ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day." What a surprising show of faith in blogs (the ridicule specialists of "the internet") from the uber-elite! We remember when bloggers were the drunken, discretion-less, pajama-clad degenerates of the media world. Now they're saving the world, retroactively! Of course this is hopelessly naive.