by Jules Witcover

Chuck Hagel

In the wake of the big Republican fund-raising dinner keynoted by Newt Gingrich with Sarah Palin as an off-again, on-again attendee and distraction, the shambles in which the party finds itself is painfully apparent.

Rather than trotting out a prominent figure who might bring a fresh and forward-looking message to the assembled faithful, the dinner spotlighted a veteran of Democratic vilification and a defeated vice-presidential nominee diminished by her transparent shortcomings in national and foreign policy international matters.

Gingrich presented his customary lecture on the world according to Newt, with his undeniable talent for persuading the already converted.

At the same time, Palin's very presence demonstrated the GOP quixotic yearning for going back to the future.

Among well-known Republicans not captivated by the spectacle was former Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, now on the sidelines after two terms of impressive service not always appreciated by the Bush administration, with whom he did not always agree. Hagel often supported its domestic agenda but evolved as an outspoken critic of Bush's war of choice in Iraq.

Hagel did not seek reelection in 2008 and is now chairman of the Atlantic Alliance, and has signed on to teach foreign policy at Georgetown University.

Beyond his basic disagreement on the war, Hagel candidly acknowledges concern over the face the embattled Republican Party showed to the country in that fund-raiser.

"Their hot prospect as their speaker was Newt Gingrich," he observed the other day, and "the way they handled the whole Palin fiasco was astounding. Here's a guy who had to resign in disgrace (as House speaker)."

"This is not the leader of the future. You've got the guy who's your main speaker who called the Supreme Court nominee a racist, and later had to try to finesse that -- 'Well, I meant that one statement was racist.' "

The whole scene, Hagel said, demonstrated that "you just need some time to drain that poison, and then we'll see what happens."

He noted that at least six Republican-held Senate seats will be open in 2010, posing the party with big problems.

"You have to let it play out to the point where you get to a complete vacuum and a plateau of no message and no messenger," he said.

"Then that will allow something to build into that. It's also predicated on where Obama is and the country is, because you've got to find some relevant message to attach to the beginning of the 21st century, about where this country goes."

The Republican Party, Hagel acknowledged, also needs to feed in "some realism of the answer to the tired, old, hackneyed phraseology of the Republican Party over the last 60 years -- smaller government, lower taxes. That's a joke. We Republicans built the biggest government the world's ever seen. We, the Republicans, ran up a third of the nation's debt in the last eight years. We did this. So all this tired stuff about less government, come on. It's got to be a whole new type of a message."

Parties historically have been up and down, Hagel noted, but the big difference today is the Internet.

"It has changed everything. It hasn't made political parties irrelevant, but it has made political parties considerably less relevant. What Obama did with it is only the beginning. You have a tool here that you can doing anything you want with it that normally was always done by the parties -- organization, communications, legitimacy."

As a result, Hagel said, more and more candidates run as independents, not in third parties, and that was what Obama essentially did in 2008.

"Obama didn't come up through any party ranks, and that's what's going on in politics today -- the Obama model."

But, he added, "Look at the buffoonery going on at the Republican National Committee right now, it's embarrassing. It shows you the reality of where parties now are on the scope of relevancy."

From all this, it's easy to see why Hagel himself flirted with joining New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's idea of an independent presidential candidacy.

For himself, Hagel is letting the post-election confusion in his party play out before determining what the future may hold for any political future of his own.

 

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