Hagel Wants to ‘Shake Up’ the Election
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel told "Face the Nation" on Sunday that he was "not happy with the Republican Party," and hinted he might make an independent run for president, perhaps with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg by his side.
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel told “Face the Nation” on Sunday that he was “not happy with the Republican Party,” and hinted he might make an independent run for president, perhaps with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg by his side.
It’s possible Hagel’s antiwar conservatism and Bloomberg’s appeal as a Republican moderate could find traction among unenthusiastic Republican voters and spoil the election for the GOP.
Dig, Root, GrowCongressional Quarterly:
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., continues to weigh a 2008 presidential campaign, and he is hinting that he might run as an independent — perhaps in tandem with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In an interview Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Hagel, one of the GOP’s sharpest critics of the war in Iraq, said, “I am not happy with the Republican Party today. It has drifted from the party of Eisenhower, of Goldwater, of Reagan, the party that I joined.”
Hagel said he would decide by late summer whether to get into the presidential race. He also voiced support for the notion of a third-party or independent option in 2008, saying, “I think it shakes the system up. The system needs to be shaken up.”
This year, we’re all on shaky ground, and the need for independent journalism has never been greater. A new administration is openly attacking free press — and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
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The appointment of lobbyist Mark Esper to lead the department should be a huge scandal. That it isn't speaks volumes about our priorities.
Just shy of three months since Chuck Hagel was obliged to vacate the position, the Obama administration has a new secretary of defense -- and Ashton Carter has his work cut out for him.
Unbelievably enough, a bankrupt 13-year-old policy of war to the horizon remains ascendant in Washington, and “war fever” seems to be breaking out yet again. In this context, it's curious that four crucial aspects of war, American-style, were missing from the blitz of Hagel reportage.
Chuck Hagel's departure from his post as defense secretary has been attributed to his failure to fit in with the Obama cabinet's crowd. Among his other reported deficiencies was that he was only a sergeant in Vietnam, twice wounded.
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