The Chuck Hagel Diebold Connection, and a Conspiracy Theory Dismissed
In 1992, investment banker Chuck Hagel, president of McCarthy & Co, became chairman of AIS. Hagel, who had been touted as a possible Senate candidate in 1993, was again on the list of likely GOP contenders heading into the 1996 contest. In January of 1995, while still chairman of ES&S, Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald that he would likely make a decision by mid-March of 1995. On March 15, according to a letter provided by Hagel’s Senate staff, he resigned from the AIS board, noting that he intended to announce his candidacy. A few days later, he did just that.
A little less than eight months after steppind down as director of AIS, Hagel surprised national pundits and defied early polls by defeating Benjamin Nelson, the state’s popular former governor. It was Hagel’s first try for public office. Nebraska elections officials told The Hill that machines made by AIS probably tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in the 1996 vote, although Nelson never drew attention to the connection. Hagel won again in 2002, by a far healthier margin. That vote is still angrily disputed by Hagel’s Democratic opponent, Charlie Matulka, who did try to make Hagel’s ties to ES&S an issue in the race and who asked that state elections officials conduct a hand recount of the vote. That request was rebuffed, because Hagel’s margin of victory was so large.
As might be expected, Hagel has been generously supported by his investment partners at McCarthy & Co. — since he first ran, Hagel has received about $15,000 in campaign contributions from McCarthy & Co. executives. And Hagel still owns more than $1 million in stock in McCarthy & Co., which still owns a quarter of ES&S.
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In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and maintained a financial investment. In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel’s ES&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel’s first election victory was described as a “stunning upset” by one Nebraska newspaper.
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Now I look back with the benefit of google’s cache of Usenet posts and find:
Having once held double-digit leads, Max Baucus now leads Dennis Rehberg by only 46-41 in a recent independent poll taken for the Senate race in Montana. In Nebraska, Gov. Nelson’s lead over Chuck Hagel has shrunk to two points, 49%-47%, also an independently conducted poll. (Both were done by newspapers.)
It appears that the election was trending Chuck Hagel’s way. If this was a conspiracy, it would have to follow through that Diebold or the Right-wing Cabal had influence on key polling institutes, to show a double digit lead for Nelson vanish and help legitimize the eventual quote-in-quote “vote” total. (This is what is alleged and speculated before hand with concern to Gallup circa 2004.) Further, Bill Clinton was pretty unpopular in Nebraska, and had to have had negative-coattails for Ben Nelson (who won the 1998 election, and is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate).
Read this month’s Mother Jones article for some odds and ends concerning Ohio 2004.