A poll last week suggests Chuck Hagel is at considerable risk in a primary tussle with Jon Bruning. But results of the survey also showed Nebraskans edging toward Hagel's position on the war in Iraq.
Posted: Sunday, May 6, 2007 7:00 pm
What to make of it?
Last week’s release of month-old Democratic poll figures focusing on a possible 2008 Republican Senate scrap seemed a bit odd, but here’s what it showed.
The poll suggests Chuck Hagel is at considerable risk in a primary tussle with Jon Bruning, says Democratic pollster Andrew Myers.
But results of the survey of 500 respondents in late March and early April also showed Nebraskans edging toward Hagel’s position on the Iraq war. Bruning has centered the brunt of his criticism of Hagel on the senator’s opposition to President Bush’s Iraq war policies.
“Iraq is a double-edged sword” for Hagel and Bruning, says Myers.
While Hagel is in danger of “losing his base” in a GOP primary contest because of his position on Iraq, Myers says, Bruning “runs the risk of alienating the electorate in a general election.”
That creates “a tremendous opportunity for Democrats,” state party executive director Matt Connealy suggests.
But, one wonders, might it also suggest Hagel would be strongly positioned in a general election if he clears the hurdles placed in his path by Bruning in a Republican primary race?
Those would be Iraq, immigration reform and Hagel’s criticism of the president.
Key figures in the poll:
* 51 percent of Nebraskans believe Bush’s surge of additional troops into Iraq is the wrong approach compared to a phased withdrawal of U.S. soldiers; 54 percent of Republicans side with the president while 35 percent say it’s time to begin pulling out.
* Hagel’s positive rating, measured in a complex table of cool or warm feelings, is what Myers describes as “a tepid 51 percent.”
Not discussed were some other figures in the survey, which apparently did no head-to-head polling.
Hagel’s 51 percent compared to 44 percent for Bush, 54 percent for Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey — a potential Democratic Senate candidate — 61 percent for Bruning and 70 percent for Dave Heineman.
In a separate question on job performance, Hagel outscored Bruning 42-40 in ranking as excellent or good, but received a poor performance rating from 22 percent of respondents compared to 6 percent for Bruning.
Make of it what you will.
But factor in how much the world will have changed when primary voters go to the polls a year from this month.
Finishing up
* Bruning, explaining why he’s not ready to release his campaign fund-raising figures: “I want to protect my donors from getting beat up as long as I can.”
* Ben Nelson has launched an interactive Web page allowing viewers to virtually accompany him on his tour of Iraq a weekend ago. The trip begins at bennelson.senate.gov/iraqcodel
* U.S. diplomacy at work: When Iran’s foreign minister stiffed an Iraq conference dinner in Egypt because he apparently believed a female entertainer was revealingly clothed, here’s what the State Department spokesman said: “I don’t know which woman he was afraid of, the woman in the red dress or the secretary of state.”
* Robert Novak, writing about Hagel: “His harsh assessment resonates with many Republicans who believe Bush’s war policy has led the party to disaster.” Hagel’s judgments, Novak writes, “come from someone credited with rebuilding Nebraska’s Republican Party and who has earned a lifetime conservative voting rating of 85.2 percent from the American Conservative Union.”
* Seeking a public accounting of the results of the Bush administration’s troop surge, Nelson joined John Warner and Susan Collins last week in requesting a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in early September for testimony by Gen. David Patraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq.
* Lotsa chatter about the dinner meeting between Hagel and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the Palm in Washington last week. Gotta guess Unity08’s third-way presidential movement came up. And that the billionaire mayor picked up the check.
* USC at night this September: Bring it all, B-2 stealth bombers over the stadium, parachutists landing on the field, fireworks with cannon fire, Andy Roddick, the blimp, a Spartan warrior and horse of our own.
Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or dwalton@journalstar.com.