Variety’s Michael Learmonth writes about NBC’s big guns appearing on MSNBC in the days leading up to the 2006 Midterm elections (and do note Andrea Mitchell’s schedule these days as a result)…

“One of the reasons we are moving operations together here at 30 Rock is we want to be in the position to do this as much as possible,” said NBC News prexy Steve Capus. “This is not a merger to be feared; it’s about being smarter about how we deploy our people.”

Bringing the cable network into the NBC News nerve center means a lot of NBC News talent will be doing double duty for MSNBC, which net execs believe is key to improving the performance of both as well as achieving the planned staff reductions that will be carried out by early next year.

Effort comes as MSNBC is looking to politics as a niche for a network that has searched for one with varying degrees of success since it assumed long-term residence in third place in the cable news ratings soon after 9/11.

“I think it’s a good brand for us going into the 2006 and 2008 elections,” said MSNBC general manager Dan Abrams.