Sen. Chuck Hagel at the New Yorker Festival

"The most important election since 1933," the ranking Republican from Nebraska declared when asked about the meaning of November 4th.

The New Yorker Festival showcases luminaries with important things to say, and sometimes it is a U.S senator doing the talking . This Saturday Ryan Lizza, the Washington correspondent for that magazine facilitated a conversation with Senator Chuck Hagel, a man with important things to say.

The senator is retiring from the senate at the end of this term and does so after working as a ranking member on three committees situated at the heart of the current crises in America today: foreign relations, banking and intelligence.

On the campaign and candidates:

Lizza baited the senator for an endorsement early on in the conversation and was not rewarded overtly, but instead solicited an impassioned proclamation on the imperatives and possibilities that will follow the upcoming election

"Success and accomplishment (of the next president) will be seen by his judgment and who he will surround himself with." The senator throughout the evening articulated the damaged caused by the myopia of the current administration, crippled by dogma and inflexibility.

Hagel stated that he is friends with both McCain and Obama and to publicly endorse either one would be to entwine himself into the fray of denouncement and attack.

Good listener and Omaha as decider

Hagel has been a strident critic of the war and it's handling. The senator broke away starkly from his party's support on what he called a "bunker mentality" towards intelligence and diplomacy. After Bush was re-elected he told the president personally that Bush "does not know what's going on out there".

Hagel reminded listeners that he was the first to encourage diplomatic outreach to Iran. Cerebral diplomacy is a hallmark of Hagel as it is with Obama's foreign policy platform. The Nebraskan senator and Democratic nominee have spent a great deal of time together traveling abroad and was on the the nominee's shortlist as a VP. Hagel traveled to Iraq with Obama for that well documented information gathering tour hosted by Gen. Patraeus this summer.

Among various insights Hagel offered about Obama, was " good listener". Obama he said was one of the few junior senators to sit through all senior committee member's questions until his turn. A rare show of interest and attention, Hagel said.

Lizza pushed Hagel on the bit of breaking campaign news coming out of the Obama camp. Staffers had moved into Omaha to go after that district's electoral vote (Nebraska and Maine are not winner take all and assign votes based on district). The Nebraska senator said with pride that maybe Omaha will decide the next president rather than the supreme court.

In reference to Senator McCain, Hagel seemed to miss the McCain of old. The candidate we see day to day now has needed to move way right in order to gain the support of the Christian right and extreme conservative base.

In terms of cabinet, McCain has defined less who will help him guide his decisions, particularly foreign policy. He regards Palin a "stretch" to be qualified as president.

"Elections are more than winning, they are about self-correction", Hagel waxed about the campaign's 'change' theme. He emphasized the need for post-partisanship in the oval office to bring the country back together. "Politics are at an all time low".

Iraq and the War on Terror:

Hagel has been prolific with his views on the Iraq and Afghan wars. Hagel has maintained that the war on terror has never been in Iraq but in the autonomous region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, an area he characterizes as a safe haven for the training, plotting and accumulation of resources for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. His outrage on the mismanagement of the Afghan front was recently vindicated by General David McKiernan's plea for more resources in that country.

"We're going backwards in Afghanistan" he says, continuing, "if we are not willing to support that effort, we should pull out".

Corn not Poppy

Hagel envisions a plan that goes beyond a military build up and more towards cutting off the funding for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. A progressive scheme he proposed would be to buy up the entire poppy crop, which he accounts for 90% of the heroin trade, destroy it and then replace the cultivation with food staples and associated subsidies.

He maintained that further work needs to be done regarding the supply lines of financial support from Hezebollah and Hamas via Iran. When pushed by an audience member on how that was developing, he replied that it was complicated and that Treasury was working on that process.

When asked about Iraq, Hagel responded that in the end it will "work out", but that it in the end it may be the rise of another "strongman" that will bring the country under control. He reinforced the need for Iraqis to be accountable for their future, that it is not our incumbent responsibility.

Independent Run and Beyond

Lizza asked the senator about his brief flirtation with an independent candidacy match-up with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He joked that it was clear which one them would have funded the race, but that in the end they both believed there was no room for that ticket with Clinton and Obama running at the time.

He referenced the summit in Oklahoma City earlier this year that focused on the "partisan paralysis" of Washington. Unfortunately any independent thought which came out of those meetings was quickly snuffed out by the momentum and party coalescence of the primary races.

For the New Yorker audience that night, Hagel's clear and pragmatic intelligence was both disarming and reassuring; an effect best administered by a straight talking Republican from Nebraska.

In this era of untethered spin and incessant messaging from both parties, Chuck Hagel's departure from the senate deprives that body of an anchor of principle and honest leadership. We will hope his frustration of these past eight years will not prevent him from returning to D.C in a new capacity. There is a lot repair work needed across the river at the Pentagon.