Maybe I don't get it, why would we WANT to try and help them seem moderate? If the RepubliKans want to drive off a clif, why on earth would we want to stop that?

I don't know much about Hagel, but I look at this as the same thing from a few years ago, when they primaried Specter in PA. Had Specter lost that primary, I am 100% convinced that the Democratic party would now enjoy a LIEbermanless Majority.

The idea is that while Chuck Hagel is a republican he is a very moderate republican who splits with his party when he feels it is the right thing to do... why on earth would we want to see him replaced with some right-wing nut job?

If you answered "we wouldn't," you are correct. That is why we can not stay silent on this issue.

You are right that a Specter loss in the primary could have given us a true majority in the senate a couple years later...however, it is just as likely that it would have stuck Pennsylvania with an extremely right wing Senator by the name of Pat Toomey.

It has to be about more than D or R, it also has to be about what kind of people we want running at all- and Chuck Hagel, whether you agree with him or not, is a fine man who thinks for himself. Would I rather have a Democrat in that seat? Of course I would, but at the same time I DO NOT want to see another lunatic right wing candidate land a seat in the Senate which is what could happen if he were to lose a primary.

I get the idea, that he is a 'decent' Republican, but my thought is, they are doing nothing but playing hard ball, and playing to win.

Max Cleland
Tom Daschel

They have done EVERYTHING they could to defeat even moderate Democrats. They didnt support Lieberman because they wanted to keep centrist Democrats, they supported him because he was the best possible outcome for them.

I agree, we would certainly want Hagel, instead of Nebraskas version of Pat Toomey, but we have virtually NO chance against Hagel, and we have a good sporting chance against a nut case R instead.

Perhaps it was Lieberman's drama that led the press to cover that story as they did -- and Hegel may not be seeking the same attention.

For everyone's jokes about Gerstein, he did a great job of getting media attention and getting the story reported as Lieberman framed it.

The press is busy, overwhelmed, squeezed by right-wing editors, and covers stories by printing press releases whenever possible, in my opinion. They just choose whose press releases to reprint.

In Lieberman's case, they took the Lieberman press releases and ignored Lamont's. Who knows what press releases the candidates are sending out here.

Isn't it funny how republicans liked to point out the Lieberman thing as an example of liberal intolerance when Lieberman got into trouble not just for his Iraq war stance, but the way he demonized his own party members and had a lovefest with the other party. Hagel, on the other hand, has not demonized his own party until the namecalling in his party went too far, and even then Hagel resisted the temptation to attend Democratic gatherings and be their favorite Republican. So where is the comparison. What excuse do the Repubs have to make a pretty conservative guy an outcast?

Most of the time Hagel just disagreed with the Bush administration on the war, and never made comments which were kind of Democratic Presidential candidates the way Lieberman did of Bush in 2004.