Guest post - Chuck Hagel: A brief history as I recall

This evening we have a guest post by Mary Wittler.

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Chuck Hagel

Yesterday, the local news was making a big todo about the Chuck Hagel announcement coming on Monday from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. And rightly so. I remember the last time one of Nebraska's own made a run for the top job. Bob Kerrey created a lot buzz and a pretty big stir when he threw his hat in the ring for a relatively short run. I don't expect that to be the case this time around. This one's gonna be interesting. I can attest to that because I've been watching Senator Hagel from the farmhouse for quite a while now.

A brief history as I recall.

Before Chuck Hagel came into the picture, his senate seat was held by Democratic Senator James Exon. James Exon was a much beloved and highly regarded Nebraska politician having won five consecutive state elections and never having lost. He was a popular two term governor before taking on the Senate. He retired from politics in 1997 at the age of 76. Enter Ben Nelson. Another very popular two term Democratic governor and odds on favorite to succeed Senator Exon. Also enter Don Stenberg, a very popular Attorney General, and Republican party golden boy.

Everyone was eagerly anticipating the showdown between Nelson and Stenberg as if it were a sure thing. It was set up to be a knock down drag out. The Democrats held that seat for decades even through the Reagan years and the Republicans wanted it badly. Out of the blue, and I mean that like..."Where the heck did he come from and who is this guy?"...along comes Chuck Hagel. Everyone's first response to the plain spoken man from North Platte was one of writing him off as an "also ran".

Being from North Platte which is in the panhandle country of Nebraska is like being from the Upper Peninsula if you are a Michigander. There is Omaha and Lincoln and their surrounding areas...and then there is the whole rest of the state. The Omaha/Lincoln crowd pretty much run the show in Nebraska.

Well, the plain spoken man campaigned tirelessly. He talked to people not at them. He sounded like them. And what he said, made sense to them. There was no lawyer speak, or polished phrasing. He kept it simple. Think John Wayne as opposed to Dick Powell. That was the difference between Chuck Hagel and Don Stenberg. Add to that the times. The prevailing thought was that there were already too many lawyers in Washington. The voters responded. Chuck Hagel won the primary. Eyebrows were raised. No one saw this coming...but they should have, and would have if they had been paying attention. They had just "assumed", and Stenberg grossly underestimated not only Hagel, but the voters. Ben Nelson wasn't about to make the same mistake.

The election of 1996 was a humdinger. It got heated in a big way. The two men obviously didn't have much use for each other, and the feelings that were born out of that election continue to this day. Remember those Pace Picante sauce commercials? I remember that Ben Nelson used them to try and cast aspertions on the fact that Chuck Hagel had left Nebraska to enter big business...and that his values were no longer Nebraska values, but rather from New York City.....that's NEW YORK CITY! Still cracks me up.

However, Chuck Hagel's base served him well. As a child his family had moved several times all around Nebraska. He knew LOTS of people and those people all vouched for his Nebraska values. Not only that, Chuck Hagel was a bonafide decorated army veteran, having served as a grunt during Vietnam. Those were some huge props that served him well with the military folks. In addition, he had graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha...not the Lincoln school. The Omaha college was the working mans school. There were no on site dormitorys. It was not a frat school, or a party school. This was a school were you went to get the degree that would help you move up in the world.

Again, Chuck Hagel spoke to the people and addressed the issues that were their issues. His campaign message was that he wasn't trying to get elected to serve himself, he was trying to get elected to be their voice. And they believed him and believed in him. And that's why Chuck Hagel got elected and Ben Nelson didn't. Voting machines aside...the exit polls verified that the people thought that Chuck Hagel represented Nebraska in more ways than one.

So on Monday, when Chuch Hagel makes his announcement whatever it is (I'm bettting he'll go the exploratory committee route) from the University of Nebraska at Omaha....he starts out on this journey with the same foot and the same message. That message is that I am one of the common folk, who started out with nothing, served my country when my country called, went to school to get my degree right here at this school not some Ivy league elite school, worked hard, started a family, and made some money the old fashioned way. I care about all the things you care about especially this debacle in Iraq...because I am just like you. Let me be your voice.

If you think there aren't voters that are going to respond to that...think again. Oh and one more thing...in Nebraska Chuck Hagel is even more popular with Democrats than he is with Republicans. Try figuring that one out.

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Originally posted yesterday at the author's Yahoo360 blog.

Guest Post

Today we have a guest contribution. The following is from William Reid Dalton III. He articulates his views on conservatives and why Chuck Hagel is the conservative that he wants to see elected in 2008.

I am a conservative Republican. I became a conservative Republican at the age of 10 when I heard Ronald Reagan give "the speech" on behalf of Barry Goldwater on he eve of the 1964 election. In 1970 I appeared on NBC News holding a sign reading, "Sensible Students Support Spiro". In 1972 I was a College Republican helping Jesse Helms win his first election to the U.S. Senate. In 1974 I was a Republican election judge in the Woolen Gym precinct on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill, a lonely place to be a Republican that night. In 1976, I was helping Ronald Reagan come back from an unbroken string of primary defeats to win the North Carolina Presidential Primary, saving his candidacy not only for that year, but giving him the credibility to
come back and win in 1980. In 1980, I was actually on the ballot as a Republican legislative candidate running on the same ticket that sent Ronald Reagan to the White House, gave the U.S. Senate to the GOP for the first time since I had been in diapers, and helped Greensboro elect its first Republican Congressman in history. In 1982 I was parliamentarian to the North Carolina State Convention and served as Co-Chairman of the Committee that that year rewrote the Party's Plan of Organization. In 1983 I went to work as an attorney in the Reagan Administration, where I remained for three years until leaving politics and government service to enter seminary and ministry in the Presbyterian Church. In the debates that have gone on in the Presbyterian Church for these twenty years, I am known as a conservative.

George W. Bush is not a conservative. A conservative would not have exploited the nation's fear and loathing in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy to launch the specious "War on Terror", the ill-conceived and still unresolved war in Afghanistan, and the disastrous war in Iraq. This was the work of radical zealots. A real conservative would not have worked with Teddy Kennedy to muscle the "No Child Left Behind"
legislation through Congress, the worst Federal intrusion into the public schools since the 1960's, and this after two decades of running on a platform calling for the abolition of the Federal Department of Education. A real conservative would not have pushed through, by illegally breaking the rules of the Congress, an expansion of the Medicare program into prescription drug benefits, the biggest single boondoggle and entitlement program added to the government's budget since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

A real conservative would not arrogate powers to himself as President that have no basis in the Constitution. A real conservative would not suspend the writ of habeas corpus, arrest and hold people without warrant, without sufficient evidence of criminal activity to bring charges in Court, and search their possessions and records, their correspondence and telephone conversations without a warrant or probable cause. A real conservative would not countenance members of his Government conducting interrogations by torture of its prisoners, and then try to obscure what he is doing with tendentious opinions from a corrupt Justice Department, and attempts to avoid the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts.

A real conservative is someone like Sam Ervin, who stood up to Richard Nixon, that pseudo-conservative who corrupted the White House in the 1970's (if anyone is interested, I voted for Schmitz in 1972), and stopped that President from trampling upon the rights of the people guaranteed by the Constitution. A real conservative is someone who stands up to George W. Bush, today's pseudo-conservative, when he tries to do the same and even worse.

Senator Chuck Hagel is a real conservative. He voted against expanding the powers of the U.S. Department of Education. He voted against the unconscionable unfunded expansion of the Medicare program. He has been an early and constant critic of this President's war policies, from his reckless military adventures abroad to his contemptuous disregard of the Constitutional rights of Americans at home.

Chuck Hagel and Ron Paul are the two men who are stepping up today to save the nation from the calamitous policies of the Bush Administration and to save the Republican Party from its corrupt pseudo-conservative leadership. While Representative Paul has stood valiently for his principles for thirty years inside and outside the Congress, he has been relegated to the fringe of the Party. Senator Hagel, while remaining true to himself and his conservative principles, has always maintained the reputation of a mainstream Republican, certainly much more of a mainstream Republican than John McCain, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney. If it were not for his stand against the war noone would question either his Republican or conservative credentials. And those who oppose him on the war issue are no true conservatives. As the Republican Party wakes up to the truth of the subterfuge, fraud, and even criminal warfare that has been carried out in its name, it will turn to Chuck Hagel to save it and even carry it to victory in 2008, an achievement that would be impossible except that the Party repudiates the policy of warmongering and war profiteering with which it has been saddled for more than five years.