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Hagel: Sestak ‘exactly the kind of leader America needs’

PHILADELPHIA—Former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel endorsed Democrat Joe Sestak for Senate Tuesday, giving the congressman another supporter outside his party as he increasingly seeks to build his credentials as a self-styled independent politician.

Hagel, the two-term senator from Nebraska who opted not to seek reelection in 2008, backed Sestak at events in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, calling Sestak, a former Navy Admiral, “exactly the kind of leader American needs right now in its history.”

“I have never met a public servant more committed to making a better world than Joe Sestak,” Hagel said at Washington Square here.

Hagel has bucked his party before, and was a soft-spoken supporter of Barack Obama’s after forgoing an endorsement of John McCain in the 2008 presidential race. Exactly a week after he was endorsed by Michael Bloomberg, the Republican-turned-Independent mayor of New York, Sestak continued to play up his bipartisan appeal.

“I think think there’s a very pragmatic way to approach [America's problems],” Sestak said. “I think there’s this ability to be independent, to work with dissent, the difference of ideas, and reach across the aisle to see if you cannot not work together.”

Both Hagel and Sestak are military veterans, and both have traveled together to Iraq and Kuwait as lawmakers. Sestak called Hagel “the man I most admire in Congress.”

Hagel passed on a chance Tuesday afternoon to talk about Sestak’s opponent, Republican Pat Toomey.

“I’m not here on behalf of Pat Toomey, I’m here on behalf of Joe Sestak,” Hagel said. “And I think Mr. Toomey is a  good man, decent man, honest man. But that said, I’m here to endorse Joe Sestak.”

Toomey’s campaign, for its part, stepped up its efforts to discount Sestak’s self-proclaimed independence, recalling the many, many times during the Democratic primary during which Sestak called himself the “real Democrat” and said he wanted to be President Obama’s strongest ally.

“Congressman Sestak can bring in all the out-of-state individuals he wants to try to put forward his extreme makeover, but all Pennsylvanians are left with is an extreme liberal,” Toomey spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik said in a statement. “Congressman Sestak changes his tune day-to-day on the campaign trail, but the most telling thing is how he votes when he’s in Washington, and there is nothing independent about his record of voting down-the-line for the bailouts, the stimulus … the cap-and-trade energy tax, and $3.5 trillion in deficit spending. If Joe Sestak is looking for an out-of-state visitor who best reflects his voting record, he ought to invite Nancy Pelosi.”

August 24, 2010 at 5:14 pm

--Andrew Thompson

Tags: Chuck Hagel, Joe Sestak, Pat Toomey

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