Chuck Hagel is not a liberal. He’s not a moderate. In fact, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find an issue - outside of Iraq and foreign policy in general - where Chuck Hagel agreed with the majority of Democrats.
It’s nothing I haven’t said here and elsewhere before, but it definitely bears repeating:
We know Mavericks. We go to school with Mavericks. Mavericks are good friends of ours. Chuck Hagel is no Maverick.
I normally start off my thoughts on Chuck Hagel by flashing back to September, 2002. Hagel was up for reelection, and was quite skeptical of the unilateral course the President was taking in Iraq. At 17, a couple of weeks too young to vote in the upcoming election, I was just becoming politically aware. Everything about my politics became colored by the Iraq War, and in a very real way I became a Democrat because of Iraq. So I came in with an open mind when Senator Hagel came to my American Government class in high school to take questions. And I came away impressed. This is one of the good Republicans, I thought. Maybe we can still stop this from happening. I would have voted for Chuck Hagel in 2002. So I won’t doubt the sincerity of his position on the war. In fact, I’ve often found myself agreeing with him - not hard to do when he is right. However, he has also consistently shown himself as willing to put party above principle - even on the issue of Iraq.
As the realities of the next several years set in, it became clear that the “good” Republicans have long since disappeared. And if Chuck Hagel is the best that they have, then we’re in for a world of trouble if the Republicans hold on to the White House in 2008. What the left fails to understand about this? It’s an unacceptable outcome. Chuck Hagel is far to the right of what most of the anti-war left would wish to see enacted on a domestic level. There’s still a disconnect - anti-war is still equated with “liberal.” Folks assume that since he’s nominally on our side with Iraq, that means he’s on our side. There have been voices of reason, including a few that I’ve linked to here. None of us in Nebraska are fooled by him, anymore. Well - almost none of us. He won’t ever become a Democrat - because he doesn’t agree with us on about 90% of the issues.
The right’s problem with Chuck Hagel is basically the opposite side of the same coin. They think he’s a liberal, and they hate him for it. If he runs for reelection, there will be a significant minority in the Republican Party who will want to challenge him in the primary. What does the right fail to understand? Chuck Hagel owns the Nebraska Republican Party. His staff, his connections, and his machinery ran the campaign in 2006 - and his endorsement legitimized and energized the Heineman campaign to use that machinery to crush Tom Osborne. The strongest candidate for a U.S. Senate seat on the Republican side is former Governor Mike Johanns, a good friend and ally of Hagel. And while Jon Bruning is making rumblings about running for Senate, he hasn’t ever been an underdog, or really faced any competition, in any of his races. And if Tom Osborne can’t unseat an incumbent, is there any doubt about whether Jon Bruning could?
But it’s the “mythical center” that bothers me the most with Hagel. Typified by the incredibly naive Unity08, the “mythical center” believes that elections for office are too partisan. And that the way to solve it is to take one person from each party, throw ‘em together on a ticket, and say “that’s the center.” And it’s a load of crap. Because on issue after issue, the center of American political thought resides in the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party looks like America. The Democratic Party represents America. There isn’t a single Republican who could reasonably run on a “unity” ticket with a Democrat and represent the views of even a sizeable plurality of Americans - not to mention reconcile their views with their running mate’s. The fact that Hagel is floated as a possible “Unity” candidate is indicative of the dominance that the war is having on the political debate. But make no mistake about it - on domestic issues, you’d be hard-pressed to find a Democrat who could stomach Hagel as a running mate. Politics are partisan. Get used to it. It’s not the D vs. R that should concern you - it’s the mudslinging and attacks. The questioning of Americans’ loyalties and patriotism. The false outrage. The fearmongering. There are clear differences between the Democratic and Republican Parties, and they can’t be resolved by creating an artificial center.
“There are clear differences between the Democratic and Republican Parties, and they can’t be resolved by creating an artificial center.”
Clear differences between the political parties? Sometimes I have a hard time seeing that. The republicans have become a party of extremes, often of extreme exclusion. If they don’t follow the party line, they cannot have any sort of influence in the new republican party.
But is it worse in the eyes of the generally non politically-involved public to exclude a lot of people and have a machine that seems to pump out a clear message, or to have a party that attempts to appease so many that it has no real unity, message, or guts to do what is right?
Cut the idealist crap.
I’m not saying that I think having a mixed ticket is a good idea. But there is a real center out there, and they are not being served by either power. The way I see it, the Democrats have tried, but have not stopped arguing amongst themselves about relatively minor issues long enough to have any kind of effectiveness. Everyday I find myself increasingly frustrated with the democratic party and their political impotence when it counts.
Oh, no doubt there is a center of political opinion. But it’s not going to manifest itself in a single candidate - and certainly not in two candidates from different parties. But I think a compelling argument can be made that the Democratic Party is far more representative of America. It is more ideologically diverse, more culturally diverse, more inclusive. The extremist tilt of the Republican Party as of late has made this even more clear. I, too, am incredibly frustrated with the Democratic Party’s lack of action, but given a slim majority and varying opinions on what can be done, the unified Republicans can pretty much block any substantive action on the war.
My argument isn’t that the center doesn’t exist. It’s simply that mainstream opinion is somewhere in the Democratic Party.
The truth about Hagel is he is the Republican who supports the president’s policies the most. He supports 95% of Bush’s agenda. That’s more than McCain, More than Brownback, More than Jeff Session for that matter. HE IS NOT A MODERATE. He speaks out on one issue - Iraq - and never votes to back up his mouth. That makes his a duplicitous conservative. The worst of the worst.