Hagel running for PREZ! why not when you own the machines?

[Melissa G]

Don Walton: Hagel embarks on the long, open road
snip

Hagel, of course, ultimately could choose to abandon the path to a 2008 presidential bid. But he needs to be a couple of years down the road should he choose to try to go the distance when he makes his final decision after the 2006 elections.

That's why he started now.

And, of course, the place to begin is in New Hampshire, site of the nation's first presidential primary election in 2008.

snip


Hagel is a shareholder in McCarthy Group Inc. of Omaha, whose portfolio includes Election Systems and Software Inc. Prior to his 1996 election to the Senate, Hagel was president of McCarthy and Company, chaired by Mike McCarthy.
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2005/05/09/local/do...

[kansasblue]

1. that's such a conflict of interest.

Why do we let that stand. (holding stock in election equipment and running for office)

Along with partisan sec of state in the statehouses. We are just begging for problems. (and we got them).

[Kerrytravelers]

2. He owns stock in voting machines and will be possibly running for pres?

Well, perhaps the decision is made. Pres. Hagel in 2008.

Unless they think Hagel has been too confrontational against *. Then they will unleash a series of calls playing on people's biggotry and tell them Hagel has a baby with a black woman... a la McCain.

[napi21]

3. He was asked about that last week at one of the colleges in NH.

He said he did have stock in the optical scanner voting machine company before he even ran for the Senate, but he sold it all. He does still have some stock in the McCarthy Group which apparently has some investments in the voting machine company. I sure got the impression, not only from him, but from other reports I've read, that he was the COO of an investment group of some kind.

I'm not saying that takes him off the hook, but if all fairness, I have some investments in several mutual funds. I have no idea every one of the companies they're invested in, and they buy and sell all the time. I sure don't feel like I have any influence over any of them.

[dissent1977]

4. The problem...

He was more than just a stockholder, he was a high level executive for the company that made the machines. Whats worse he didn't publicly disclose this clear conflict of interest while he was running for office.

Hagel is not the moderate he is portrayed as, that is unless you consider a moderate to be a person who believes in the privatization of democracy (clearly a position most the public would find outrageous if they only knew what was happening). If Hagel runs we need to use the opportunity to slam him on this issue every chance we get.

[Melissa G]

5. Well said, dissent! Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Amaryllis]

8. He had five million in McCarthy when he was elected. Not quite the same as

you having stock in mutual funds and not knowing all the companies.

[garybeck]

6. it's obvious

the only way the repubnicks can win an election is by stealing it. they need the candidate to be part of the inner circle who knows all about the stealing of elections and the electronic voting machines. those "in the know," including myself, have been predicting Hagel will run for president for about a year now. Look for Jeb to be his running mate, hard to say which will be prez and which will be vice, but I predict that's the pair.

[mod mom]

7. Gary, do you think the ES&S suit against Diebold is a ploy to throw

us off, or real inter-fighting amongst power mongers?

[napi21]

11. I don't think any Pub will want a Bush as a running mate.

I really believe the general public will be totally fed up with any "Bush" by then, and that means those who aren't already! Although I don't trust him, I do think Jeb is smarter than his father or his big bro, and I think he knows that! I'm not saying he'll never run, but I'd bet he won't in 2008!

[Amaryllis]

9. It was one of those "stunning upsets" that so often happen with paperless

DREs and repub legislators.

http://www.publicaccountability.org/election.html

ELECTION SYSTEMS AND SOFTWARE (ES&S)

Chuck Hagel was CEO and part owner of ES&S shortly before he was elected Nebraska's U.S. Senator in 1996. ES&S voting machines were used in the election, which was considered an upset victory for Hagel—Gallup polls had shown the race tied 47-47 two days before the election, but Hagel won by 14 percentage points. World-Herald publisher John Gottschalk had recruited Hagel, an investment banker at the McCarthy Group, to work for American Information Systems several years earlier. Though Hagel stepped down from his position at ES&S in 1995, he did not disclose his involvement with ES&S during the election. In 2002, he still had an investment in the McCarthy Group valued up to $5 million.

[Melissa G]

10. great post Amaryllis! n/t