Attorney General Jon Bruning said Thursday he’ll not be deterred from a 2008 Senate bid by the fundraising power of Sen. Chuck Hagel or the “strong-arm tactics” employed by his political operatives.

“I’m as close as I can get to running without making the final decision,” Bruning said in a Lincoln interview. 

“And I’m getting closer every day.”

Hagel, he said, is out of touch with the views of most Nebraskans  on critical issues like the war in Iraq and immigration reform.

But, he suggested, that may be because the senator has “lived in Virginia his entire adult life except for a couple of years” when he worked in Omaha.

“When he’s done with politics,” Bruning said, “Hagel will live in Virginia.

“When I’m done, I’ll live in Nebraska and be putting around on some golf course in Lincoln wearing a goofy hat,” the attorney general said.

“I think there’s a substantial chance Senator Hagel is not going to run,” Bruning said.  “Why would he run when he may not be interested?”

Hagel has said he’ll decide later this year whether to seek re-election, pursue the presidency or leave elective office at the end of next year.

Bruning’s sharp words followed on the heels of recent announcements by the Hagel for Senate committee heralding a six-figure fundraising dinner for the senator in Omaha later this month headlined by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

“They’ve used very tough tactics” to line up hosts for a pair of fundraising events, Bruning said.

Some Hagel contributors already have informed him they’ll be giving him campaign money, too, the attorney general said.

“I’d rather be respected than feared,” he said.

Hagel political director Kevin Chapman said Bruning’s allegation of strong-arm tactics is “complete nonsense and totally ridiculous.”

As for Bruning’s suggestion that Hagel may be more Virginian than Nebraskan, Chapman said: “Senator Hagel has lived more years in Nebraska than Jon Bruning has been alive.”

Forty-four years compared to 38 for Bruning, he said.

Hagel is hardly out of touch on Iraq or when it comes to war, Chapman said.

“He’s been to Iraq five times and just got back.  He served his country (in Vietnam) and as deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration, and he’s been president of the USO.”

The attorney general “must think President Bush is out of touch on immigration reform,” Chapman said.  Hagel has been “working very closely” with the president on that issue, he said. 

Bruning said Hagel would outfund him in a Senate race, with the power of incumbency in his favor and “Washington money washing over him.”

Despite that advantage, he said, “this election would be decided by the people, not by who raises the most money. The race in 2006 showed you can’t buy a seat in the U.S. Senate.”

Last year, Republican nominee Pete Ricketts poured millions of dollars from his Ameritrade fortune into an unsuccessful bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson.

While ratcheting up the rhetoric on Thursday, Bruning continued to zero in on Hagel’s opposition to President Bush’s surge of additional troops into Iraq and his reference to impeachment as a tactic some of the president’s strongest critics might ultimately decide to pursue.

“Nebraskans are fed up with Senator Hagel’s trying to micromanage the war,” Bruning said.

“We need to be patient and have faith in the president and the generals to pursue what they believe is the best course of action.

“We’ve gone this far,” he said.  “We can’t turn back now.”

Hagel, he said, was “completely off base to put impeachment on the table” when he mentioned it — without advocating or supporting it — in an interview in Esquire magazine. 

Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.