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Is Hagel the New McCain?
Every election needs its maverick. Some random speculation at Central Sanity …
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5 Responses to “Is Hagel the New McCain?”
Imho the question should be ‘is Hagel the next Chaffee’? And this shows his main problem. The hardcore base won’t vote for him. Good for the Dems.
Chaffee got screwed over big time, in my opinion. He showed more principle in voting against the Iraq War in 2002 than the feckless Democrats who voted for it (about half the Democrats in the Senate). And what did the Dems do to pay him back? They targeted him for defeat, and now a for sure vote against “the surge” is gone.
Hagel’s up for re-election in 2008. One has to wonder whether the Dems will target him as well.
I’ve admired Hagel for his political courage, and I admired Chafee for his. Chafee was voted out because if he had won reelection, the GOP leadership would have stayed in power in the Senate, and nothing would have changed. Maybe he should have changed parties-it seems he was in agreement with the Democrats on many important votes anyway.
“And what did the Dems do to pay him back?”
The DEMS? He’s a republican, the Dems don’t owe him anything. And pls note:
“The irony of the Whitehouse-Chafee race is that the candidates are not demonstrably different on some key issues, including the Iraq War.”
When two candidates are almost equal, simply vote for the guy from your own party. That’s how the cookie crumbles.
No misunderstandings, pls: I think it’s really refreshing that at least one TMV blogger doesn’t just stomp for the Dems moving to the right, but would like to see republicans endorse more centrist positions, too. Much too often readers here get the impression that the GOP actually gets a free ride at TMV, with most of the critique aimed at the Dems.
But sadly, contrary to ‘conventional wisdom’ offered here, it’s much more probable that hard core liberals would support a candidate to their right, as proven in the 2006 election, than that Hagel will be backed by the republican base. It would take a miracle for Bush’s fanatic followers to embrace a candidate who is actually very critical of the Iraq war. And, again, looking at the polls summing up public opposition against the continuation of the ocupation, this is tail wind for Dems candidates.