If you look at Chuck Hagel's official portrait, taken July 17, 2006, you will see a deeply troubled man.
Yesterday, a small army of media and pundits followed Senator Chuck Hagel back home to Omaha, Nebraska to find out what the senator's future political plans involve. They were told they would have to wait until later this year. I am prepared to make a prediction now.
But first, let's review the facts: Chuck Hagel still isn't a household name, though he probably deserves to be. Who is this guy?
Hagel is a native Nebraskan. He was born in 1946 and served as a sergeant in Vietnam, serving in the U.S. Army and receiving the purple heart twice for wounds received in combat as well as several other decorations. In 1971, he graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
During the seventies, he served as a Republican congressional staffer for four years, and then as a lobbyist at a time when that job title wasn't yet a dirty word.In 1980, he worked for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign and then accepted a position as deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration. In 1982, Hagel quit in a dispute over a plan to cut veterans benefits.
During the eighties, Hagel co-founded Vanguard Cellular, and became a multi-millionaire and was active with several charities as well as public policy organizations like the American Red Cross and the Council on Foreign Relations. In the early nineties, he returned to Nebraska to head an investment banking firm.
In 1996, Hagel ran for one of Nebraska's U.S. Senate seats against Ben Nelson. During the campaign, Hagel pledged that if he won, he would only serve two terms--a period the would expire in 2008. Hagel won the seat (Nelson would later run again and win Nebraska's other seat) and began his Senate career. In 2002, he won re-election with an astounding 83% of the vote.
In 2005,Hagel broke with the Bush administration over the War in Iraq. Since that time, Hagel has been a steadfast critic of the war, of Bush, and of Dick Cheney. Hagel has explicitly compared Iraq to his experience in Vietnam, calling Bush's surge plan: "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out."
Sometime during this period, Hagel began to consider a run for the presidency, in spite of the fact that he is only polling about 8% among likely Republican presidential voters. This brings us to what happened yesterday. If Chuck Hagel were serious about running for the Republican nomination for the presidency, he would have announced weeks ago, instead of putting off his decision until later this year. What is Hagel up to?
I believe Chuck Hagel is planning on running for the presidency as an independent, a spoiler, specifically to ensure that the Republican Party will be defeated. Hagel has seen his own party fail its own ideals as thoroughly as a political party can. He has seen his party sink in corruption, incompetence, and hubris. He has watched as warnings were ignored and the mistakes of Vietnam were repeated.
Hagel knows what any reasonably astute political observer knows: it is almost impossible to reform a political party while it is still in power. I believe that Hagel plans to administer the toughest kind of tough love: he will drive his own party from power so that a new and genuinely conservative Republican Party can emerge from the ashes at some future date.
Either that, or he's running for a third term.