Mr. Hagel’s views on Israel and Iran—two rather important issues at the moment—are extremely troubling, although apparently President Obama finds them acceptable. What’s more, the former senator is positively retrograde in his opinion of gay people. It’s hard to know precisely what Mr. Obama sees in him. Unless, of course, the president shares Mr. Hagel’s skepticism of the threat Iran poses to Israel and the West. Or perhaps the president also regards Israel as a geopolitical burden rather than a trusted ally.

Given Mr. Hagel’s record, it’s not surprising that he has attracted critics from across the ideological and partisan spectrum. Former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, a Democrat, noted that Mr. Hagel voted against the interests of gay, bisexual and transgender people throughout his tenure in the Senate. Mr. Hagel also assailed the nomination of James Hormel to be U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg in 1998, complaining that the nominee was “openly and aggressively” gay—whatever that means.

Former Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat, noted that Mr. Hagel has consistently opposed economic sanctions against Iran and its virulently anti-Semitic, anti-American regime. And South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, said that Mr. Hagel would be the most “antagonistic secretary of defense towards the state of Israel in our nation’s history.”

This is more than the usual partisan sparring in Washington, D.C. These are grave accusations, made by people who have deep and justified concerns about Mr. Hagel’s agenda and his priorities.

Unfortunately, it’s too late now to stop the president from moving ahead with the Hagel nomination. Critics were able to derail Susan Rice’s potential nomination as secretary of state, leading to the selection of John Kerry and avoiding a nasty public squabble. Mr. Hagel’s official nomination on Monday has raised the stakes and made a public confrontation inevitable—and necessary.

Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee should hold Mr. Hagel to account for his record of antagonism toward Israel, his reluctance to crack down hard on Iran and his reactionary views on gays. Mr. Hagel’s confirmation hearing could then become an open and public glimpse into the opinions of the man Barack Obama wants to preside over the Pentagon.

It’s hard to imagine that the American people will go along with this appointment when they hear Mr. Hagel unfiltered by White House spokesmen. Such a hearing would not be pretty, but it would be the last chance to block a truly unfortunate appointment.

The presence of Mr. Hagel at the Defense Department would send all the wrong signals. Gay people would rightfully wonder why the Obama White House chose to promote a man who attacked Mr. Hormel. Iran would see no reason to end its anti-American diatribes. And Israel would have reason to doubt America’s commitment to its security.

It’s up to the Senate to press Mr. Hagel, and let the force of public opinion do the rest.

As usual, when Chuck Hagel spoke at Columbia University, he didn't reveal who he intended to vote for in the presidential election. But he did say that Barack Obama "probably will be" elected next week because "we think he is a leader we can believe in, we can trust."

Dressed in subtle white stripes and a baby-blue tie, Hagel treated the event, technically part of a book tour, as a kind of fireside chat ("We'll take as much time as we need," he said) and played patriarch to the approximately 50 students who came to hear him.

"I'm impressed this many of you would show up on a Friday afternoon," he said. "That's encouraging."

Columbia students lean Democratic, but Hagel has defined himself this election cycle as a decidedly independent Republican and his allusions to an Obama presidency and criticism of the Iraq War made him right at home.

In one of just two references to the Republican presidential candidate, Hagel said that by picking Sarah Palin as a running mate, John McCain failed the first test of a president. (He thinks Obama passed).

The second time Hagel mentioned McCain, he told the audience he decided not to run for president because he had clashed with his party over so many issues. But, he said, "Maybe I was wrong."

Standing in front of taped-up sign for the Columbia Political Union, the campus group that invited him to speak, Hagel spoke about his life and about his book, America: Our Next Chapter. He recalled being at war in Vietnam, and a recent tour of Asia. The world was "simple" when he was a soldier, Hagel said, but now, "Relationships are maturing, countries are maturing, people are maturing," he said.

"We're living at a time of astounding change," Hagel said, fiddling with the button of his black jacket.

His hands moved constantly, at times folded in front of him, at times slipping into his pockets. When speaking about "the world," he held an invisible basketball.

His advice for life was this: be honest with yourself and always do it (whatever "it" is) for the right reason.

He spoke wistfully about the figures he admires: former president Dwight Eisenhower ("a five-star general"), former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan ("hell of a bartender"), his mother (a representative of the Greatest Generation, he said), and the four presidents depicted on Mount Rushmore (part of a larger theme in the book).

The students bought 14 books in total, and Hagel pointed out their good fortune.

"Normally, if I didn't like you, I'd tell you to buy the damn book," he said.

Maybe you can remember back to 1992, when just about every wise man and woman opined on the supposed importance of Bill Clinton, then a 45-year-old Southern governor, balancing his ticket with a gray-haired Northerner. Clinton, of course, ignored them and picked an even more youthful Tennessean named Al Gore, forming a visually powerful partnership that netted 370 electoral votes and made an utter mockery of conventional wisdom.

But there are times when, just like the proverbial broken clock, conventional wisdom actually gets it right. Case in point: the widely repeated view that Barack Obama needs to compensate for his perceived national security and foreign policy inexperience by selecting a running mate with reassuringly impeccable credentials in those areas. There is more than a little something to this idea.

Seventy-two percent of voters in an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Tuesday said that John McCain would make a good commander in chief. Only 48 percent said the same thing about Obama.

It's certainly possible for Obama to chip away at it by building confidence with the public over the next four months. But it demonstrates a potentially devastating perception problem for him: Too many voters have trouble instinctively conceiving of him as the commander in chief. Many of these same voters undoubtedly have a favorable impression of Obama personally and are probably inclined to vote Democratic this fall, given the mass appetite for change that typically emerges when so many domestic and international problems amass on one party's watch. But Obama's youth and recent arrival on the national stage, especially when compared with McCain, gives them pause.

Clinton, at this juncture in '92, faced the same basic doubts. He was a young man with no meaningful foreign policy experience (or military service, for that matter) running against a 68-year-old World War II hero who had led the country to triumph in the first Gulf War; hence the conventional wisdom that Clinton needed a Wise Old Man running-mate.

But the situation in '92 was different in one critical way: foreign policy and national security had, with the end of the Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, vanished from voters' minds. To the public, the '92 campaign was exclusively about the (seemingly) stalled domestic economy. Clinton correctly calculated that he'd pay no price with the public if his ticket didn't measure up on foreign policy.

Obama doesn't have the same luxury. The economy may have usurped Iraq as the top issue in polls, but not far from the surface is a palpable apprehension about national security that was absent in '92. Wars still rage in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the prospect of a military confrontation with Iran now seems jarringly real. And even though it's been seven years since 9/11, vivid memories of that traumatic day endure; it is critical for any presidential candidate to convince the public at an emotional level that they will be safe under his leadership. This anxiety wasn't present in 1992.

Already, there are signs that this commander-in-chief gap is hindering Obama. In the post-World War II era, two terms is generally the limit to the public's patience with either party controlling the White House. That is truer this year than ever. The Republican label hasn't been this poisonous at least since Watergate and Democrats are on the verge of their second consecutive rout in Congressional elections. And in Obama, they are poised to nominate a standard-bearer whom - unlike many previous nominees - most voters actually like on a personal level, a seemingly trite but actually powerful factor in an election. And yet Obama leads McCain by just a few points in most polls.

Against this backdrop, it would be an irresponsible political risk for Obama to enter the general election with a running mate who didn't have a national security resume deeper than his. Specifically, this means he should steer clear of Tim Kaine and Kathleen Sebelius, two popular governors who reside at the top of many insidery lists of prospective V.P. choices.

Their attractions are considerable. Kaine could provide a critical boost in Virginia, where an Obama win would severely complicate any McCain victory strategy. And a partnership with Sebelius, a moderate and camera-friendly Kansan, would stir much interest for its sheer boldness. With no major developments on the international scene between now and the election, an Obama-Kaine or an Obama-Sebelius ticket could plausibly withstand McCain's concerted effort to exploit the commander-in-chief gap.

But it would be a risk. There are signs of stability in Iraq, but who knows for how long? And the situation in Afghanistan seems to be worsening by the day. Then there's Iran: how will Americans respond to a game of chicken between Iran and Israel in September or October? Any of those situations could bring Americans' latent national security insecurities right back to the surface. Then how would a Democratic ticket with no significant foreign policy experience look?

From an electoral standpoint, what Obama needs is his own Dick Cheney - a running-mate who will be celebrated by the press, as Cheney was when George W. Bush picked him in 2000, for his "gravitas" and who in the fall campaign will project a calm, mature, and commanding demeanor that will offer emotional reassurance to voters. Chuck Hagel would fill this role brilliantly. Sam Nunn could pull it off too, and probably Joe Biden as well.

It seems clear that more than 50 percent of voters want to vote for Obama this fall. They will feel much more comfortable about doing it if Obama teams up with a running-mate who looks, sounds and acts like a President. Thia time, the conventional wisdom is right.

In terms of Mr. Obama's general election imperatives, the impact of Mr. Hagel's addition to the ticket would be seismic - easily dwarfing the boost that any other potential ticket-mate (except Al Gore, if you place him in that category) might offer.

Start by simply considering the nature of the media coverage of such a unique bipartisan teaming. Typically, a presidential candidate's announcement of his running-mate dominates the news for a few days, providing that candidate (and his running-mate) with a rare opportunity to mold mass opinion and to create impressions that will shape the public's response to future campaign events. The interest from the press would be sustained and overwhelming.

More important, though, is what voters would see in the resulting saturation coverage. By choosing a Republican, Mr. Obama would be making an unmistakable statement that he's serious about moving beyond traditional partisan divides. It would instantly obliterate John McCain's charge that Mr. Obama is a doctrinaire liberal ideologue who - unlike Mr. McCain and his "straight talk" - has never displayed bipartisan instincts on consequential matters.

There would be audible protests from two somewhat overlapping groups on the left: liberal activists and interest group's appalled by Mr. Hagel's conservative voting record on Issue X, and former Hillary Clinton supporters, many of whom would fixate on Mr. Hagel's pro-life stance. But the effect, even then, would be a net plus for Mr. Obama. The dissent from within his party would only endear Mr. Obama to independents, further discrediting the G.O.P.'s claim that he is a hostage of his party's fringes. And with some skillful massaging, most of the liberal activists would eventually calm down, especially when they hear Mr. Hagel shred the Bush administration's foreign policy at their convention.

Then there's the cover that Mr. Hagel would provide on national security, Mr. Obama's prime vulnerability against Mr. McCain. Even though polls show that voters reject many of the individual components of Mr. McCain's foreign policy platform - like his undying support for the Iraq war - he continues to outpoll (significantly) Mr. Obama when those same voters are asked which candidate they are more comfortable with on various foreign policy and national security questions.

This seems wildly inconsistent, but actually it makes sense: Voters know and care little about the specifics of either candidate's platform, but Mr. McCain - thanks to his age, war heroism, soldier's swagger, and maverick's reputation - "feels" safer than the youthful Mr. Obama, who's just four years removed from the Illinois state Legislature.

Mr. Hagel could help neutralize this gross image disparity, and not simply because he's a Vietnam veteran and war hero who's won national reputation for breaking with his party and his president on the Iraq war (and the broader goals that have defined the Bush overseas doctrine). As we learned with John Kerry in 2004, a decorated veteran can seem less comforting to the masses on national security issues than a politician with a light military resume.

Mr. Hagel is no John Kerry. With his no-nonsense bearing and demeanor, he looks and sounds like a military man, while Mr. Kerry, with his urbane manner, doesn't. The image of Chuck Hagel, Republican war hero, standing side-by-side with Mr. Obama would provide powerful emotional reassurance to the independent voters are most susceptible to the G.O.P.'s assault on Mr. Obama's national security seasoning.

For all of these benefits, though, Mr. Hagel almost certainly won't be the Democratic candidate for vice president. For one thing, he hasn't even endorsed Mr. Obama yet, and he's still friends with Mr. McCain (although their differences over the war have created some distance).

But the bigger reason is that the establishment forces in the Democratic Party - top elected officials and money men and women - are passionately opposed to the idea of their party placing a conservative Republican a heartbeat away from the presidency. Angry activists and interest groups are one thing, but a concerted effort by the party's most influential behind-the-scenes forces to kill the Hagel idea would be quite something else.

Mr. Hagel may be the strongest potential V.P. candidate from an electoral standpoint, but Mr. Obama has other decent options. Most likely, he'll opt for the path of least resistance.

On the one hand, Hagel harbors an enduring personal fondness for John McCain, his fellow Vietnam veteran and maverick Republican senator. “A good friend of mine—a dear friend, as a matter of fact” is how Hagel described McCain in an ABC News interview over the weekend.

And in the past, that kinship was more then enough. When McCain ran for president in 2000, Hagel backed him without blinking—one of very few Senate Republicans to climb aboard the “Straight Talk Express.”

But this time around, there’s the issue of the Iraq war and, more broadly, the sweeping neoconservative vision of U.S. foreign policy unapologetically championed by McCain. The Arizonan accuses those who favor a withdrawal from Iraq of wanting to “surrender to Al Qaeda” and—despite the manifest disaster of the past five years—still spurns the idea of engagement with other Middle East countries and happily encourages talk of preemptive U.S. intervention in Iran.

This approach couldn’t be further from the one favored by Hagel, an old-school “realist” Republican whose pragmatic foreign policy views have become anathema to the Republican Party of McCain and George W. Bush. McCain has been running for president for well over a year now—but this time, Hagel hasn’t even come close to endorsing him.

“John and I have some pretty fundamental disagreements on the future of foreign policy,” he admitted in the same ABC interview.

Besides the Republican label, tattered and unsightly after eight years of Bush, McCain’s main Achilles’ heel in this election is probably the war, which polls still show voters oppose by a two-to-one margin.

So far, this hasn’t actually hurt McCain, because his intimate association with the war—and the foreign policy vision that produced it—is understood by relatively few self-identified war opponents. By a 54-to-40-percent margin, according to a new Gallup poll, voters think McCain would handle Iraq better than Barack Obama. In a Los Angeles Times poll, the spread was 13 points.

This is easily explained: Most casual voters follow little more than the headlines coming out of Iraq. They’ve seen and heard enough to understand that the war has mainly been counterproductive, but they haven’t devoted the time or effort to appreciate why. In McCain, they simply see a personally appealing maverick and decorated war hero—just the kind of guy American needs to clean up its Iraq mess.

The key question is whether the independent voters who now oppose the war but support McCain anyway will, by the end of the fall campaign, end up seeing McCain the same way that Chuck Hagel now does. If they do, McCain will probably lose. But if they don’t, then he just might pull off the remarkable feat of winning as the pro-war candidate of the pro-war party at a time when nearly 70 percent of voters say they’re antiwar.

And Hagel himself could play a significant role in determining how independent voters ultimately perceive McCain. It’s almost unfathomable that Hagel will end up endorsing McCain, since Hagel has staked his entire political reputation and Senate legacy on his break with his party over the foreign policy it has embraced. Last year, when McCain’s presidential campaign seemed lifeless and doomed, Hagel appeared ready to bolt the G.O.P. for a third-party run, perhaps with Mike Bloomberg, an idea that fizzled when McCain and Obama—two candidates with powerful appeal to independents—emerged as the likely nominees.

Now that McCain is the Republican candidate, Hagel faces a tug of war between his conscience and a personal relationship.

Conceivably, he could try to split the difference by refusing the endorse McCain but only speaking out against him sparingly. Given that Hagel lacks the broad name recognition of a presidential candidate, such an approach might allow him to appease his conscience without inflicting a mortal wound on the political ambition of his “dear friend.” And if Obama were to defeat McCain anyway, Hagel would still be a logical candidate for an influential Cabinet role, possibly as defense secretary.

But if he wants to, Hagel can do much more than that. He is leaving the Senate after this year, forced out—in part—by the threat of a Republican primary challenge from a candidate who would have played up Hagel’s “disloyalty” to the party on the war. At 62 years old, he has no national future in the G.O.P., either as a presidential candidate or in the cabinet of a President McCain. Politically, he has nothing to lose in making a loud and lasting break with McCain and the Republican Party.

Undoubtedly, Obama and the Democrats would welcome Hagel in virtually any role he’d be willing to play in the general-election campaign. Right now, Obama’s top military backer is retired General Tony McPeak, a former Air Force chief of staff. Hagel would add instant and badly needed gravitas to Obama, boosting his effort to convince independents to overlook McCain’s “experience.” Hagel’s presence as a prime-time speaker at the Democratic convention, in television advertisements and news programs, and on the fall campaign trail would speak directly to voters who share his personal regard for McCain and who may not yet realize just how radically his foreign policy values differ from theirs. It’s not even impossible to envision Hagel as Obama’s running mate.

It’s hard to believe Chuck Hagel will do anything to help John McCain win the White House. The question is how much will he do to keep him from doing so.

In a matchup with Obama, McCain would face two potentially conflicting imperatives with his choice of a vice presidential candidate.

On the one hand, he badly needs to fire up an apathetic conservative base that even now has not warmed up to his candidacy. For a long time, he’d been assuming that Hillary Clinton—perhaps the most reviled figure among the conservative grass roots—would win the Democratic nomination and accomplish this for him. But if the vastly less polarizing Obama is his opponent, McCain may find his VP choice to be his best remaining means of mobilizing the G.O.P.’s base.

But picking a candidate with well-established conservative bona fides may not help McCain with his other imperative: the excitement factor. Obama’s candidacy has history-making potential, and the age difference between him and his presumptive general election opponent—25 years—would be the largest in history. The 72-year-old McCain would benefit from picking a younger, less conventional running mate who can appeal to the non-G.O.P. base voters who are instinctively attracted to Obama’s personality and to the future-versus-past theme of his campaign.

Meanwhile, conventional wisdom holds that Obama’s main criteria for picking a VP is to find someone with foreign policy heft, since most of Obama’s elected experience came in the Illinois state legislature. This would be particularly true against McCain, who will make Obama’s supposed foreign policy inexperience one of his main lines of attack.

Of course, Obama could thumb his nose at conventional wisdom, and pick a running mate whose foreign policy background—at least in the traditional sense—is just as thin as his, preferring instead to choose a VP who reinforces his emphasis on fresh thinking. Bill Clinton employed this logic in 1992 when he selected Al Gore, a fellow baby boomer who was from a Southern state that bordered Clinton’s Arkansas, when conventional wisdom suggested that he needed a graybeard from up north.

McCain will enjoy one slight advantage in the selection process: Since the G.O.P. convention comes after the Democrats’, he can wait for Obama (or Hillary Clinton) to make his pick before filling out his own ticket.

Here are a few names the candidates ought to consider, assuming, for the sake of this exercise, an Obama-McCain matchup:

Barack Obama

Chuck Hagel: This has the benefit of being both an unconventional, outside-the-box pick and yet a safe one. A conservative Republican on many issues, Hagel is an outcast in the G.O.P. for his outspoken opposition to the foreign policy that his party has embraced under George W. Bush. This has also made him something of a hero to the left and a media favorite. In many ways, Hagel has emerged as the new McCain.

He’s giving up his Senate seat this year and, at 61 years old, is probably through running for office as a Republican. But he’s impeccably qualified for national office, has a commanding presence and grasp of military and national security issues and would vividly illustrate Obama’s declarations that his candidacy represents an effort to unite blue states and red states.

Jim Webb: Webb’s presence on the ticket would have roughly the same effect as Hagel’s, even if Webb is actually a Democrat (although he wasn’t for most of his life). Like Hagel, Webb is a man of conservative instincts who found himself alienated from the G.O.P. because of its embrace of Bush foreign policy. A military man, he has the same commanding presence as Hagel and would also bring ideological diversity to the Democratic ticket (for instance, on gun control). A bonus: He could help in Virginia, a state that will actually be in play this fall.

Joe Biden: Don’t laugh. Biden stuck his foot in his mouth talking about Obama last year, and it’s not at all clear Obama likes him on a personal level. But Biden is a weighty figure on foreign policy issues and a forceful speaker and debater (on points, he won most of the Democratic primary debates). By embracing him, Obama would be sending a signal to well-meaning white voters of a certain generation that he understands if they—like Biden—haven’t fully figured out how to talk about race. I know you don’t mean any harm, Obama would be telling them, and I want you on my team.

Claire McCaskill: A counterintuitive pick, given that she has less foreign policy experience than Obama. But if Obama wants his ticket to serve as a statement that “stale” Washington thinking has no place in his campaign, then he could do worse than to tap a second-year female senator who has made combating wasteful Defense Department spending (a nice response to McCain’s anti-government waste crusade) one of her pet issues and who represents a prime swing state, Missouri. McCaskill might also help Obama mend fences with women who have been devoted to Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

John McCain

Mike Huckabee: Huckabee is doing his level best to prove his usefulness to McCain, gobbling up primary votes from religious conservatives who stubbornly refuse to come around to McCain. Pick me and you can have them all, is Huckabee’s implicit message to McCain. Plus, McCain seems to hold Huckabee in genuinely high regard for the major assist Huckabee provided him in driving Mitt Romney out of the Republican race. Huckabee is a skilled speaker and debater who would probably perform well on the stump and in the VP debate in the fall. The problem: He’s been caricatured (many would say accurately) as a religious extremist and could turn off independent voters whose support McCain absolutely must win in order to defeat Obama.

Kay Bailey Hutchison: She may represent the best realistic balance between McCain’s need to mollify the base and to make a bold statement with his VP pick. Hutchison is not the most conservative member of the Senate, but she’s also far from being a moderate. She has slowly crept to the right on abortion through the years, and after once advertising herself as pro-choice has now adopted views on the subject that could probably pass for pro-life. She would probably be acceptable to most of the right. And her gender would mean that the Republicans would not be running a “white guys” ticket against Obama.

The biggest drawback: She may have some ethical baggage from a 1993 indictment that charged her with misusing Texas state employees to assist with her Senate campaign that year. In early 1994, the prosecutor (Ronnie Earle) decided not to proceed with the case after the judge declined to rule on the admissibility of key evidence.

The best thing she has going for her: If McCain wants to make a splash by picking a woman, he doesn’t have many realistic choices.

Mark Sanford/Tim Pawlenty/Rick Perry: Three somewhat interchangeable conservative Republican governors. Sanford (South Carolina), Pawlenty (Minnesota) and Perry (Texas) all represent safe picks who would do little to inspire the masses and counter the excitement factor of an Obama-led Democratic ticket, but who would sit well with the conservative base that McCain is now scrambling to unify.

Pawlenty, in particular, has had his eye on McCain’s number-two spot for a while. He endorsed the Arizonan last year and has staked out an immigration position in opposition to McCain’s—which could make him more attractive to McCain, since he needs to reach out to conservatives who believe he has promoted “amnesty.”

David Petraeus: This is a very, very long shot. But there has been talk that Petraeus may be moving on from his role as the commander of international forces in Iraq later this year and McCain has been his biggest booster—publicly and behind the scenes in D.C.—since Petraeus took over in Iraq last year. And McCain has made his devotion to the surge and to Petraeus’ Iraq strategy central to his campaign. Petraeus has also been rumored to have political aspirations of his own. Needless to say, this would be a dramatic selection that could compensate for the excitement gap between McCain and an Obama-led Democratic ticket.

Today, Bloomberg denied that report.

"I never talked to him about being a candidate," the told reporters after a speech at the United Nations in Midtown. "We just never had that conversation."

Bloomberg was responding to a question from a reporter. 

The media outlets here to cover the event include: CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight, The Los Angeles Times, Factcheck.org, Unite for Mike, Al Jazeera, Neo-Indypendents Magazine, BBC World News America, Telemundo, Neither Liberal Nor Conservative Be (we're not sure either), Newsweek and the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Another tidbit from the scene: alphabetical seating means there probably won't be any suggestive photographs of Bloomberg and his much-discussed potential vice-presidential candidate Chuck Hagel...or at least not during the panel.

Hagel said that Americans “are going to have to break a very dangerous partisan deadlock in this country in order to face the great challenges that lie ahead. And we think it’s serious."

When asked if Michael Bloomberg, who is at the conference, should run for president, Hagel said, “Well, that’s his decision.”

As for being his running mate, Hagel told us, “Oh, that’s all hypothetical. We’re not about that here and the mayor says he’s not a candidate."

The full exchange:

HAGEL: We talked about movies, we talked about politics, the future of America, a little of everything.

Q: Did you have any Junior’s cheesecake?

HAGEL: We did. The mayor was very generous. And it was very tasty. He received many compliments.

Q: Did you talk about him running for president?

HAGEL: No we didn’t. We talked, we talked about a lot of things, politics of course, our country and issues, framing and trying to influence the direction of our country, and breaking this partisan paralysis that we have in the country today. Putting our situation, and our people, and our country in a position where can deal with these big problems. Our next president is going to have to break that. As well as the Congress and all of us.

Q: Do you think the mayor should run for president?

HAGEL: Well, that’s his decision.

Q: What are your thoughts on it?

HAGEL: Oh, I’ll wait and see what he has to say. That was not what tonight was about nor why we’re here.

Q: How would you describe his level of participation tonight. More listening? More proactive?

HAGEL: Oh, he participated like all of us. There was 17 of us and we all listened and we all participated.

Q: Was there any heated debate at any point?

HAGEL: No. There were a lot of different points of view. I mean, you put 17 people in a room, we’ve all held elected office, some of us still do, from all over the country, Democrats, independents Republicans. You’re going to have a very interesting, stimulated exchange. And we did. But we all are of the same opinion, that unfortunately we are going to have to break a very dangerous partisan deadlock in this country in order to face the great challenges that lie ahead. And we think it’s serious.

Q: Did the results out of Iowa, where the candidates of ’change’ prevailed, ease things here?

HAGEL: That didn’t have anything to do with what we’re talking about.

Q: This meeting is sort of bigger than what’s happening?

Well, we’re talking about a 21st Century framework of strategy. How are you going to break the deadlock? How are you, the new president, is he or she going to build a truly, unity government? A truly bi-partisan government? What are your ideas? How are we going to deal with these great issues, regardless of the primary season. The elections will go on, as they should.

Q: Would you run as Bloomberg’s vice president?

HAGEL: Oh, that’s all hypothetical. We’re not about that here and the mayor says he’s not a candidate.

Mike Bloomberg seems intent on not killing the speculation that he might mount an independent presidential campaign. And Chuck Hagel seems equally intent on stoking talk that he’s interested in a spot on a national ticket next year – especially one led by the mayor.

Yesterday brought word that the two have been holding regular get-to-know-you phone calls and that they have discussed potentially running together. The Hagel-Bloomberg dance has been going on for a while.

In May, Hagel had dinner with Bloomberg and then went on “Face the Nation” and slyly noted, “It's a great country to think about - a New York boy and a Nebraska boy to be teamed up leading this nation." And, even as he announced in September that he wouldn’t seek the presidency in ’08 and that he wouldn’t run for re-election to his Nebraska Senate seat, Hagel did nothing to discourage talk that he might serve as Bloomberg’s Number Two.From Bloomberg’s standpoint,the pairing would make perfect political sense.

In Hagel, Bloomberg would find a running-mate with Washington experience, foreign policy expertise, and a no-nonsense manner that could inspire confidence. And Hagel’s blunt outspokenness, which has made him a pariah within the G.O.P., would go over very well with independent voters.

Hagel, though, may not need Bloomberg quite as badly as Bloomberg would need him. While no G.O.P. nominee – with the exception of Ron Paul, if he were somehow to win – would consider Hagel for V.P., he’d be very attractive to any of the Democrats. And he seems to know it, publicly suggesting he’d consider an offer from a Democrat and even handing compliments to Hillary Clinton.

But his best chance for a spot on a national ticket would be with Bloomberg. The question is under what circumstances the mayor would run. One report suggests he sees a Hillary-Huckabee contest as the ideal scenario, with each major party nominee polarizing the electorate, thus opening the door for a third choice.

That sounds about right. If Barack Obama were to win the Democratic nomination, it’s tough to see the masses agitating for an independent candidacy. If the Republicans nominate John McCain, it would also deny Bloomberg an opening. But if the major party nominees are Hillary and any non-McCain Republican (including a now-battered Rudy Giuliani), expect Bloomberg to take a serious look at jumping in.