Similarly, Bloomberg may be blazing another trail via Unity ‘08, that could open that path for a Hagel independent run. I see both as (perhaps unwitting) stalking horses for the man who would make the best President - Chuck Hagel.

While Bloomberg projects the image of managerial competence, he does appeal “primarily to upper class and intellectual elites.” As a multibillionaire Wall Street businessman, Bloomberg would have some difficulty connecting with Main Street voters.

Hagel, by contrast, is a bonafide bootstrapper whose personal story all Americans can identify with. He’s a wealthy man today due to visionary business decisions. But his upbringing was as hardscrabble as it gets. The family followed Hagel’s father around Nebraska, at one point living in the furnace room of a facility where the elder Hagel was maintenance man.

As a decorated combat veteran in Vietnam, Hagel is uniquely qualified among all the declared and undeclared presidential candidates to make critical foreign policies decisions. Hagel has made himself clear on the Iraq war, where Bloomberg has avoided stating his position on the most important issue facing American voters in 2008.

Both men are being assiduously courted by Unity08 and could well end up on a ticket together. It will remain for the Unity08 voting delegates to decide who among all the competing candidates will get the first and second spots on a Unity08 ticket.