You may be right. The thing is most of the country still see Hagel as an R. Polls show republicans getting blamed for not compromising on anything. I think Obama looks magnanimous and republicans look like they went after another minority, yet he gets everything he wanted and republicans look bad. It makes it harder in the fiscal deal the more the country is behind Obama. Not about election it is about legislating and negotiating from strength. Of course I could be wrong :).
Remember it is all how it will be perceived. Isn’t that how he won....again?
Chuck Hagel could knock on the door of 99.9% of folks in the country and they’d have no idea who he was.
Most of the country doesn’t see him as anything.
Other than another almost 70 yr old white guy DC insider.
I’m not saying Hagel will really hurt him, but I don’t see Obama getting any huge boost politically. I mean a name I had seen mentioned was this Michelle Flournoy. Now, if Obama had named the first woman SecDef that would have been an event and may have helped him. Hagel won’t really make any waves or anything.
As far as what Hagel would mean for the military I’m not an expert on him(he seems to me like he’ll pretty much be a continuation of Gates and Panetta at the Pentagon) but in the end as long as Obama is in the WH the SecDef is really irrelevant. Obama pulls all the strings.