Lots to discuss from this Bloomberg piece:
[Chuck] Hagel has policy differences with both candidates, and said his disagreement with Obama “probably is not as big” as his differences with McCain over Iraq.
Should McCain become the next president, a Democratic Congress and popular sentiment against the war will likely force him to back away from his current support of the Bush administration war strategy, Hagel said.
“We know where the American people are on Iraq,” Hagel said. “And if McCain is elected, I believe he is going to have to adjust to that reality and find a way out of Iraq.”
Hagel said he would like to see the candidates meet in a series of debates across the country, a proposal first made by McCain. Obama’s campaign has said they would consider the proposal although it hasn’t yet agreed to a schedule.
Given the U.S. role in the world, the election is being closely viewed around the globe, Hagel said. “Leaders and people all over the world are wondering and they’re questioning, and they’re calibrating, and they’re adjusting their own thoughts and policies based on what they hear,” Hagel said.
Hagel said his disagreement with the Bush administration and his view that the Republican Party “has veered and shifted, and come loose of its moorings” don’t mean he has given up on the party.
The “Republican Party is bigger than George Bush or Dick Cheney,” Hagel said. “I’m an Eisenhower Republican and the party today is not an Eisenhower Republican Party. Will it come back? I don’t know.”
Hagel also said that he is not endorsing McCain and that he would consider serving in Obama’s cabinet. It’s interesting to see Hagel, who is very conservative on domestic and economic issues, call himself an Eisenhower Republican. I have never thought of him that way. To me, Eisenhower Republicans are extinct in the Senate, outside of Olympia Snowe of Maine. Voinovich might qualify on a good day. But Jeffords and Cohen and Chafee are gone.
Hagel’s predictions about a McCain presidency’s Iraq policy is also interesting and worthy of discussion.
