I remember the moment I fell out of love with Chuck Hagel. I was writing the blog post that Leigh links to below and decided to do some digging into the Nebraska senator’s background. I found out that the Republican I half-revered as Congress’s loudest war objector and Bush Administration critic actually voted with the White House more frequently in 2006 than any senator of any party. The man is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. You can see his record at the link I provide above.
And tell me: How is that not the best possible candidate for the Republican nomation? In the eyes of the conservative base, Hagel is perfect on every social and economic issue. The one place he diverges from the party line is the one place where America diverges from the party line. Some are speculating that there isn’t a place for an anti-war candidate in the Republican Party. I say if there will ever be a time for an anti-war candidate, it is now. And considering how flat wrong all the frontrunners for the Republican nomination are on key issues like abortion, gay rights, and guns, I think even if the base finds Hagel hard to stomach on Iraq, they’ll take him. Hagel-Huckabee ’08!
