The Senate voted to confirm former Sen. Chuck Hagel as President Barack Obama's next secretary of defense following weeks of dogged opposition by Republican senators to their erstwhile colleague.

The Senate voted 58 to 41 to formally confirm Hagel, on the heels of a procedural vote earlier in the day that cleared the way for Tuesday afternoon's final vote.

That earlier vote dispensed with a filibuster that Senate Republicans had waged for a week and a half against Hagel, whose confirmation was delayed by Republicans past the President's Day recess in order to allow for more time to dig into the former Nebraska senator's background.

A number of Republican detractors — including Sens. John McCain, Ariz., Lindsey Graham, S.C. and Kelly Ayotte, N.H. — reversed their votes on Monday in order to allow the Hagel nomination to move forward.

The Senate voted 71 to 27 to move forward with Hagel's nomination, clearing the 60-vote threshold needed to end the GOP filibuster. A handful of the Republicans who allowed Hagel's nomination to come to a final vote ultimately voted against confirmation.

In the end, Obama was able to win confirmation for Hagel, his choice to succeed outgoing Secretary Leon Panetta at the Pentagon. But not before Republicans were able to drag out the confirmation fight and, in the process, ding Hagel, their onetime GOP Senate colleague from the Cornhusker State.

Republicans had fought strenuously to defeat Hagel, accusing him at points of harboring hostilities toward Israel, and sympathies for the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Tied into Hagel's nomination as well have been Republicans' long-running effort to ding Obama and his administration over their handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. 

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Senator Chuck Hagel testifies during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to be Defense Secretary, on Capitol Hill in Washington, in this January 31, 2013, file photo.

"What has their filibuster gained my Republican colleagues?" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., asked on the Senate floor. "Twelve days later, Senator Hagel's exemplary record of service to his country remains untarnished."

Reid added: "Senate Republicans have delayed for the better part of two weeks for one reason and one reason only: partisanship."

Hagel didn't necessarily help his cause during a combative confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Republicans aggressively questioned Hagel on a variety of matters during the Jan. 31 hearing. 

Even still, Democrats held firm in their backing for the former Nebraska senator, helping to move his nomination forward. Republicans, though, managed to buy themselves more time — they said, to more fully investigate Hagel's background — by waging a filibuster against the nomination on Feb. 14. 

Democrats angrily protested the delay, especially as current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta planned to leave the job, as dangerous and unprecedented. Republican opponents of Hagel, though, said at that time that they would drop their objections to holding a confirmation vote after last week's recess.

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 26, 2013 12:37 PM EST

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Senator Chuck Hagel.

Chuck Hagel’s seven-week struggle to win confirmation as secretary of defense appears near the end with an expected Senate vote Tuesday on his nomination.

President Barack Obama’s choice to run the Pentagon is expected to win confirmation since a few Republicans announced that they’ll join Senate Democrats in voting for him.

The vote would put an end to a rocky nomination process that came after Hagel’s GOP foes succeeded in delaying the confirmation.

Lead opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, insinuated two weeks ago that Hagel might have given as-yet undisclosed speeches to “extreme or radical groups” or received money from foreign sources or from defense contractors in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

But Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., rebuked the latter saying Hagel complied with the committee’s financial disclosure requirements and deserved confirmation.

Last week 15 GOP senators asked Obama to withdraw Hagel’s nomination, but it was clear that not enough Republican senators would vote to further delay Hagel’s confirmation by extended debate or filibuster.

The former Nebraska Republican senator turned against his party by campaigning for Democratic Senate candidate Bob Kerrey in Nebraska last year.

He’d also harshly criticized President George W. Bush after the Iraq war became unpopular in 2006, suggesting at one point that Bush might be impeached. These remarks made him popular with Democrats but something of a pariah in his own party.

Recommended: Obama tells govs to push Congress to avert automatic cuts

The antagonism of Cruz and several other Republican senators turned to disdain once Hagel testified before the Armed Services Committee last month. Hagel was forced to amend or retract comments he’d made about Iran, Israel and other matters.

At one point during his confirmation hearing, when discussing U.S. policy toward Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons, Hagel said, “I’ve just been handed a note that I misspoke and said I supported the president’s position on ‘containment.’ If I said that, I meant to say that obviously – his position on containment – we don’t have a position on containment.”

Levin intervened: “Just to make sure your correction is clear, we do have a position on containment – which is we do not favor containment.”

“It was the most unimpressive performance that I have seen in watching many nominees who came before the committee,” said Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Hagel opponent.

Related: What problems will Hagel inherit at Department of Defense?

But Democrats on the panel repeatedly praised Hagel for having served in combat in Vietnam.

From the beginning, Obama portrayed Hagel as a man who was ideally qualified to head the Defense Department because, as the president said when announcing the nomination, he “knows that war is not an abstraction. He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that’s something we only do when it’s absolutely necessary.”

In presenting Hagel as his pick, Obama declared that “Chuck represents the bipartisan tradition that we need more of in Washington.”

Obama said that he was courageous and independent in his views “and that’s exactly the spirit I want on my national security team, a recognition that when it comes to the defense of our country, we are not Democrats or Republicans; we are Americans.”

But Republicans such as Cruz said Hagel was not up to the job of running the Pentagon. Cruz went so far as to argue that Hagel, if confirmed, would “make military conflict in the next four years substantially more likely” because his views on negotiating with Tehran would encourage the Iranians to accelerate their nuclear weapons development program.

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 26, 2013 4:10 AM EST

A vote on President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the Defense Department, Supreme Court arguments about the future of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act and the expected onset of automatic spending cuts known as the "sequester" mean the nation's capital is bracing for a politically consequential week ahead.

After a weeklong recess, Congress returns to Washington with a full agenda of business that needs handling. Topping that list is an item which lawmakers are arguably unlikely to resolve over the course of the week: the sequester, about $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set to begin taking effect on Friday, the first day of March.

Lawmakers left town before the President's Day holiday no closer to resolving the sequester, the second part of the so-called "fiscal cliff," which was delayed for two months by the New Year's Day deal on taxes.

Last week's recess was more full of posturing and blame-placing by Obama and Republicans in Congress — who each blame the other for the sequester's creation — than any substantive progress toward a deal to address the cuts, which both sides agree would be perilous.

"So now Republicans in Congress face a simple choice: Are they willing to compromise to protect vital investments in education and health care and national security and all the jobs that depend on them?" Obama said last Tuesday at the White House. "Or would they rather put hundreds of thousands of jobs and our entire economy at risk just to protect a few special-interest tax loopholes that benefit only the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations? That's the choice."

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, responded in the pages of the 'Wall Street Journal': "The president's sequester is the wrong way to reduce the deficit, but it is here to stay until Washington Democrats get serious about cutting spending." 

The administration has been warning of the potential consequences to the spending cuts, including military readiness and even delays and inconveniences in air travel.

Related: Why Obama has the PR upper hand in sequestration battle

"We're not making this up in order to put pain on the American people," outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We are required to cut a billion dollars and we are going to do that unless Congress gets together and works together and compromises on this." 

With both sides still so far apart, an agreement to delay or soften the blow of the automatic cuts before Friday seems unlikely.

That legislative showdown would normally suffice to consume all the political oxygen in Washington. But this week also features several other major events worth noting.

One such item is another holdover from before recess. The Senate is set to vote Tuesday on final confirmation for former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., to become the next defense secretary. The vote follows tenacious efforts by some Republican senators to block their former colleague from joining the Obama administration.

Senate Democrats had hoped to formally vote to confirm Hagel before last week's recess, but Senate Republicans — even some GOP senators who said they'll support final confirmation for Hagel — joined together to sustain a filibuster, and delay the confirmation vote until this week. For their part, Democrats decried the filibuster as unprecedented against a Pentagon chief's nomination.

Still, Hagel appears to be headed toward confirmation. Some of his most vociferous critics — Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., among them — said they would support moving toward a final vote on confirmation, which would only require a simple majority of the Senate's support. Even still, several GOP senators have said they intend to support Hagel, which only boosts his prospects for confirmation, barring some sort of development.

Hagel isn't the only member of Obama's prospective national security team left hanging over the recess.

After facing a grilling earlier this month before the Senate Intelligence Committee, John O. Brennan's nomination to become the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency faces an uncertain future. Senators are looking for more information about the Obama administration's secretive drone strikes program — and Brennan's role in crafting that strategy — before moving forward with his nomination.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has threatened to filibuster Brennan's nomination before the whole Senate until he's received a satisfactory answer. The concerns about Brennan aren't isolated to Republicans, either; Democrats like Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon have voiced similar misgivings about the secretive use of drone strikes to target suspected terrorists and the process behind them.

Joshua Roberts / Reuters file photo

Capitol Hill in Washington, DC

Also this week, the Supreme Court will hear potentially consequential oral arguments challenging a section of the historic Voting Right Acts. The justices will hear a challenge to a section of the law requiring nine states with a history of racial discrimination to seek Justice Department approval for any change in their voting procedures before those changes can take effect.

Obama, speaking Thursday in a radio interview, sought to calm fears that African American or other minority voters would face greater challenges to voting if the Supreme Court were to strike down that section of the law.

"I know in the past some folks have worried that if the Supreme Court strikes down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, they're going to lose their right to vote. That’s not the case," Obama said on "The Black Eagle" radio show. "People will still have the same rights not to be discriminated against when it comes to voting, you just won't have this mechanism, this tool, that allows you to kind of stay ahead of certain practices."

Even as one of their members, Richard Shelby of Alabama, now says he will vote in favor of not only cloture for Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary but for the Hagel nomination itself, 15 other Senate Republicans are calling for President Obama to withdraw his nomination.

"While we respect Senator Hagel's honorable military service, in the interest of national security, we respectfully request that you withdraw his nomination," the Republicans wrote to Obama and announced in a press release from Sen. John Cornyn's office. "It would be unprecedented for a Secretary of Defense to take office without the broad base of bipartisan support and confidence needed to serve effectively in this critical position. Senator Hagel's performance at his confirmation hearing was deeply concerning, leading to serious doubts about his basic competence to meet the substantial demands of the office. While Senator Hagel's erratic record and myriad conversions on key national security issues are troubling enough, his statements regarding Iran were disconcerting."

Recommended: GOP's weak position on the sequester

Cornyn of Texas is up for reelection this cycle and has a Lone Star State freshman, Ted Cruz, rising as the new darling of the right. The signers of the letter include Cruz, James Inhofe (R-OK), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Roger Wicker (R-MS), David Vitter (R-LA), Mike Lee (R-UT), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Dan Coats (R-IN), Ron Johnson (R - WI), Jim Risch (R-ID), John Barrasso (R-WY), Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Tim Scott (R-SC).

Notably not signing on, however, were Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), two-thirds of the Graham-McCain-Ayotte grouping.

Read the full letter here. 

Shelby becomes the third Republican to voice public support for Hagel, giving him 58 public yes votes. The other two Republicans to come out in support of Hagel are Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Mike Johanns of Nebraska, who filled Hagel's seat in the Senate. (Johanns announced Monday that he would be retiring when his term ends in 2014.)

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images file photo

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)

"Sen. Shelby intends to support the Hagel nomination barring any unforeseen disqualifications that come to light before the vote," Hagel spokesman Jonathan Graffeo told NBC. "That is not a change of heart. He has always been inclined to support Hagel, but he voted against cloture as a courtesy to members who said they needed more time to examine Hagel's record."

Several Republicans have indicated they would likely support at least cloture after the Senate gets back from its break next week.

President Barack Obama's choice to lead the Pentagon, former GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel, will likely be confirmed next week, one of his most dogged opponents said Sunday.

"I'm confident that Sen. Hagel will probably have the votes necessary to be confirmed as secretary of defense," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

After Senate Republicans voted to sustain a filibuster and block the former Nebraska senator's nomination from advancing toward confirmation, McCain acknowledged that Hagel will likely win confirmation once the chamber returns from its recess.

"I think it's a reasonable amount of time to have questions answered," McCain said of the week-and-a-half-long window which Senate Republicans demanded to pore more thoroughly over their former colleague's records.

Democrats and the Obama administration have complained that a filibuster for a defense secretary nominee is without precedent. Moreover, they argue that filling the defense post is particularly urgent given outgoing Secretary Leon Panetta's plans to leave the Pentagon, and the looming "sequester" of automatic spending cuts, which fall heavily upon the defense budget.

The administration publicly shrugged off, though, the notion that the delay had damaged Hagel's ability to serve effectively.

"No, he's not going to be a weaker defense secretary," said Denis McDonough, the president's new chief of staff, "he's going to be a great defense secretary."

Wrapped up into the GOP's objections are the desire to ding the administration, a demand for fuller answers to the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and personal quarrels with Hagel over his criticism of President George W. Bush and the handling of the war in Iraq. McCain denied, though, that Republicans' attacks on Hagel were personal in nature.

"99 percent of it has to do with the positions Sen. Hagel has taken," he said.

The Hagel fight has consumed Congress in recent weeks, threatening to expend Obama's political capital as he enters a second term. It's yet to be seen whether this fight, and the looming fight to replace the sequester with other equivalent savings, would affect other elements of the Obama agenda — including gun control, and immigration.

Amid a New York Times report that suggested the White House had pushed ahead with its own immigration bill, McDonough said it was consistent with Obama's promise to simply be prepared with his own alternative plan. Obama, McDonough said, was still hoping that a bipartisan Senate group would be able to produce its own comprehensive immigration reform proposal.

"I believe we're making progress on a bipartisan basis," said McCain, a member of the eight-member, bipartisan Senate group working on the immigration proposal. The Arizona senator said, though, that Obama had had no communications with the Senate group.

"Does the president really want a result?" asked McCain, reflecting Republicans' concerns on the politics of immigration. "Or does he want another cudgel so he can beat up Republicans to get an advantage in the next election?"

With the Senate falling short Thursday of the 60 votes needed to move to a confirmation vote on defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, Majority Leader Harry Reid was correct in claiming that never before had the Senate had a cloture vote on a nominee to run the Defense Department.

Related: The Valentine's Day filibuster

But it’s not unprecedented for the Senate to have cloture votes on other presidential nominations – from ambassadors to judges.

The Senate changed its rules in 1949 to allow cloture motions on nominations, but cloture wasn’t sought on a nomination until 1968. From that year until March of 2012 cloture was sought on 99 nominations, including some well-known nominees:

• Abe Fortas to be chief justice in 1968
• William Rehnquist to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1971 and to be chief justice in 1986
• John Bolton to be ambassador the United Nations in 2005
• Ben Bernanke to be chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2010
• Richard Cordray to be head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2012.

But not in every case of a cloture vote is there a prolonged debate on the nomination which ties up the Senate for days – in fact, in most cases there isn’t.

A cloture vote, if successful, allows a final up-or-down vote on confirming the nominee, after up to 30 more hours of debate. For confirmation, a simple majority is usually, but not always, all that is needed.

The decision to seek a cloture vote is in the majority leader’s hands and he can time cloture votes not merely to push forward a nomination and get a vacancy filled, but to paint the nominee’s opponents as obstructionists.

Reid and previous Senate leaders have used cloture votes to drive political messages and to generate enthusiasm among their party’s base.

Case in point: Miguel Estrada, President George W. Bush’s nominee to the federal appeals court in the District of Columbia. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist insisted on seven separate votes on cloture on the Estrada nomination in 2003.

Each of them failed, but they hammered home that Reid and the Democrats were blocking a nominee whom Republicans thought was amply qualified and who happened to be a Latino immigrant.

“This is a dark moment, I believe, in the history of the United States Senate,” Frist said after the final vote on Estrada failed and the nominee withdrew.

Senators, Frist said “have been denied a very, very basic right” to vote on the nominee and “Miguel Estrada has been denied the opportunity to be considered by this body by a single up-or-down vote, whereby individual colleagues could vote either for or against a brilliant, a qualified nominee, all because of the obstruction of a few.”

More than a few: 43 Democrats, including Reid, voted against cloture on Estrada.

After Reid filed the cloture motion on Wednesday, Republicans denied that they really were stalling Hagel’s confirmation by a filibuster.

“What we are doing is not a filibuster,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, R- Okla., said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “We are seeking a 60 vote threshold for a controversial nomination. If the majority really wanted to move forward quickly, all they have to do is agree to a 60-vote margin, like they did with the (Kathleen) Sebelius and (John) Bryson nominations.”

When President Obama nominated Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services in 2009, Republicans and anti-abortion groups delayed her confirmation, partly due to her understating the amount of campaign contributions she had received from a Kansas abortion doctor, Dr. George Tiller, and partly due to her veto, as Kansas governor, of a bill to impose new limits on abortion providers.

In the negotiations over Sebelius, Reid and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to 60-vote threshold on confirmation – a procedure they could use in Hagel’s case as well.

Recommended: With job losses 'speculative' only, Capitol Hill not panicking over sequester cuts

Inhofe contended that, “A 60-vote margin is not a filibuster. We are merely saying the Senate is entitled to this information” -- on speeches that Hagel had given in the past few years.

The term “filibuster” evokes images of actor Jimmy Stewart holding the Senate floor until he collapses from exhaustion in the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And there have been famous single-senator filibusters: Sen. Strom Thurmond holds the record of 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to a civil rights bill in 1957.

But by the time the Senate voted on cloture Thursday there had been only two days of intermittent floor debate on Hagel’s nomination – with discussion of the defense secretary nominee interspersed with unrelated speeches on global climate change, the Keystone XL Pipeline, kidney transplants, whether certain sites in Plaquemines Parish, La. should be units of the National Park System and various other topics.

Whether those two days of intermittent debate were or weren’t a filibuster, congressional expert Sarah Binder who teaches political science at George Washington University said the Hagel debate “represents a significant change in the Senate's practice of advice and consent.  The issue here is the target of the filibuster-- an appointment to the president's ‘inner cabinet.’ My sense is that there has generally been a strong degree of deference to the president over his appointments to the executive branch-- particularly over the choice of his top appointments to State, Treasury, Justice, and Defense.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee to be Defense Secretary, on Capitol Hill, Jan. 31, 2013.

Binder said, “I don't think we should be surprised to find partisan polarization seeping over into these top confirmation battles. Partisanship has spread almost everywhere else in the Senate.”

In the past filibusters and cloture votes were not always an essential part of delaying a nominee.

In the case of John Tower’s nomination to be defense secretary in 1989, President-elect George H.W. Bush announced his nomination in December of 1988, but it was not until March of 1989 that Tower was defeated – not on a cloture vote but on a confirmation vote. The vote came after six days of Senate floor debate.

Tower’s ally Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., denounced the delay: “I have a large problem with the scenario that we won’t vote until every single allegation that comes over the transom is investigated.”

Of all people, Reid knows how effective the threat of a filibuster can be: he was Senate minority whip in 203 and 2004 when Democrats successfully blocked confirmation votes on ten Bush appeals court nominees, including Estrada.

That Democratic filibuster effort won applause from progressive groups. “For months, Senate Democrats have been heroically holding out against President Bush's nominations of extremist judges to America's most powerful courts,” Moveon.org told its supporter in 2003.

Citing Estrada’s withdrawal, Moveon.org said, “Our campaign to stop Bush's extremist nominees has been extraordinarily successful so far.” Estrada’s defeat “was a major victory -- the first time Bush has conceded defeat on any nomination.”

Now for some progressive groups, the delay in Hagel’s confirmation makes the case for changing Senate rules to further limit filibusters.

In a statement Thursday night, George Kohl, Senior Director at the Communications Workers of America, a union that contributed heavily to Democratic candidates in 2012, said, “A real Senate reform package would have made the obstructionists hold the floor and keep 41 of their colleagues with them over a holiday weekend.” Kohl added “the Republicans in the Senate remain intent on breaking new ground in Senate obstruction,” and “Senate Democrats who worked to scuttle more substantial reforms have forfeited their right to complain.”

Breaking down yesterday’s Valentine’s Day filibuster against Chuck Hagel… The many sides of John McCain… McCain’s straight talk: The opposition to Hagel is rooted, in part, in his criticism of George W. Bush… Senate Dems offer their proposal to replace the sequester… Obama heads to Chicago… And on Lautenberg and Booker. 

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Senate Armed Services Committee members, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. confer on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013, at the start of the committee's hearing on the appointments of military leaders.

*** The Valentine’s Day filibuster: Safe to say, there was little love in the U.S. Senate yesterday on Valentine’s Day. Senate Republicans used a filibuster to temporarily block Chuck Hagel’s nomination to head the Pentagon -- the first time a filibuster had ever been used against a defense secretary nominee and just the third time ever against a cabinet secretary pick. A combination of reasons contributed to 41 Republicans denying Hagel the 60 votes he needed to clear the procedural hurdle: Some were always opposed to Hagel; others were mad at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for not respecting a GOP “hold” and scheduling the vote; some were mad at the White House over Benghazi; and one GOP senator (Orrin Hatch) voted “present” because of the precedent that a no vote would send. Here’s the bottom line on where Hagel’s nomination stands: A delay is never a good thing, because it gives his opponents additional time to try to torpedo his nomination. That said, the fact that Hagel essentially got 59 votes (including four from Republicans) suggests he’s likely to be confirmed when this vote comes up again in late February. But we’re going to have to wait another two weeks until the Senate returns from its recess. Yet more than anything else, yesterday highlighted a growing problem for the GOP in the Age of Obama: It’s clear what they are against, but what are they for?

*** The many sides of John McCain: This week seemed to bring out both the maverick and anti-Obama partisan in Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). On Tuesday, he rebuked fellow GOP Sen. Ted Crux (R-TX) for crossing a line during the Senate Armed Services Committee’s consideration of Hagel’s nomination. “No one on this committee at any time should impugn his character or his integrity," McCain said of Cruz’s suggestion that Hagel might have taken money from countries like North Korea. But then two days later, McCain joined most of his Republican colleagues in blocking Hagel’s nomination, at least temporarily. At first, McCain said that while he opposed Hagel, he wouldn’t join a GOP filibuster against him. Then he threatened a filibuster if the Obama White House didn’t answer particular questions about last year’s Benghazi attack. Yet after the White House replied to his questions, McCain said that the GOP demands by Sen. Cruz and others for more information about Hagel speeches amounted to “reasonable requests,” as the Washington Post notes. Talk about whiplash.  

*** McCain’s straight talk: So what’s the real story? Well, McCain himself shared it late Thursday afternoon during a FOX interview, in which he suggested his opposition to Hagel was rooted in the former senator’s criticism of George W. Bush. It was a little straight talk, if you will. “There's a lot of ill will towards Sen. Hagel because when he was a Republican, he attacked President Bush mercilessly,” McCain said. “At one point, he said he was the worst president since Herbert Hoover, said the surge was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War, which is nonsense. He was very ‘anti ’his own party, and people don't forget that.” Let’s be clear: The only reason why Hagel was blocked yesterday was because McCain changed his mind. Just one more senator needed to vote for cloture to clear yesterday’s procedural hurdle. And looking ahead, McCain remains an enigma. He is a key player in the bipartisan push for immigration reform, which the Obama White House views as its top legislative priority this year -- after resolving the budget stalemates. But McCain also has opposed almost all the key legislative matters over the past four years, even those he’s supported in the past. Obama’s two Supreme Court nominees. The DREAM Act. The New START treaty. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. One thing to remember about McCain: He was a sharp thorn in Bush’s side in 43’s first term, but he became more helpful in the second term. Could we see a similar pattern with Obama?

*** Senate Dems offer their proposal to replace the sequester: Also on Capitol Hill yesterday, Senate Democrats unveiled their proposal to ward off the so-called sequester. The New York Times: “Senate Democratic leaders reached agreement Thursday on a $110 billion mix of tax increases and spending cuts to head off automatic spending cuts through the end of the year. But with even some Democrats tepid on the proposal, the chances of a deal before the March 1 deadline have receded. The Democratic proposal would establish a 30-percent minimum tax rate on incomes over $1 million to raise about $54 billion over 10 years” -- the Buffett Rule. “It would raise $1 billion more by subjecting tar sands oil to a tax to pay for oil-spill cleanups and by ending a business tax deduction for the cost of moving equipment overseas.” Folks, there’s little chance of the Buffett Rule surviving; it’s always the first thing in beginning talks and first thing out. That said, this is how you do negotiations. The real key in this Dem offer is the cuts they DID agree to and the oil and gas tax loopholes they offered up. We’re about 60% of the way there, perhaps.   

*** Obama heads to Chicago: Today, Obama heads to his hometown of Chicago, where he gives remarks at 3:45 pm ET. Per the White House, the president will discuss some of the economic proposals from his State of the Union address. But make no mistake, this visit will also be about the gun violence in Chicago. By the way, how can you tell Obama no longer has to worry about being re-elected? He’s heading to Florida for a vacation, where he’ll be getting golf lessons from former Tiger Woods golf coach Butch Harmon, according to Golf Digest. 

*** On Lautenberg and Booker: Lastly, we learned yesterday that 89-year-old Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) won’t seek re-election in 2014. As our colleague Steve Kornacki asked yesterday, why didn’t Newark Cory Booker wait for this inevitable announcement before saying he’d run for the seat, a move that only alienated Lautenberg and his allies? Booker has shown that he’s very good at the P.R. side of being a politician. But he’s made two big errors in the past year: 1) contradicting Team Obama on its criticism of Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital and 2) not waiting to run for the Senate until incumbent Lautenberg made up his mind. By the way, one other overlooked aspect of Lautenberg’s retirement -- he’s the last remaining WWII veteran in the Senate. 

http://is.gd/ccxyrR%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blank">Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on http://is.gd/TzuR1b%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blank">Facebook and also on http://is.gd/hkhSDT%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blank">Twitter. Follow us @http://twitter.com/#!/chucktodd">chucktodd, @http://twitter.com/#!/mmurraypolitics">mmurraypolitics, @http://twitter.com/#!/DomenicoNBC">DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee to be defense secretary, on Capitol Hill, Jan. 31, 2013.

Senate Republicans on Thursday stalled further work on confirming former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., as the next secretary of defense, likely prolonging the fight over the Pentagon nominee for at least another week and a half.

The Senate voted 58 to 40 to end debate on Hagel's nomination, falling short of the 60-vote threshold they needed to move toward a final confirmation vote, and subjecting the former Republican senator to an unprecedented, de-facto filibuster. Four Republicans supported Hagel and one GOP senator voted present, though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., switched his vote to "no" in a procedural move to be able to bring up Hagel's nomination at a later date.

Related: Five lessons we've learned from the Hagel fight

The vote is only a temporary setback for the White House, which still views Hagel’s eventual confirmation as a likely proposition. President Barack Obama said in a Google+ hangout shortly after the vote that his "expectation and hope" is that Hagel would eventually be confirmed.

“Senator Hagel is going to be confirmed, if not tomorrow then when the Senate returns from recess,” a White House official said Thursday. (The Senate is away from Washington next week and is scheduled to return for work as soon as Feb. 25.)

The Obama administration’s confidence is rooted in statements Thursday by a number of Republicans who have said they intend to switch their vote after the recess and support moving toward a final vote for Hagel.

The delay still incensed Democrats, though, who argued that the delay was without precedent and risked leaving the military essentially leaderless during a time of war and as major cuts to the defense budget loom. (Outgoing Secretary Leon Panetta continues to serve in his role until Hagel is confirmed, though he had intended to finish his service this week.)

"I'm going to go call Chuck Hagel when I finish here and say, 'I'm sorry,'" Reid said after the cloture vote. He set another cloture vote for Tuesday Feb. 26.

Indeed, the White House scrambled for much of the afternoon to find the handful of Republican votes that would have allowed for Hagel’s confirmation this week. They released a letter in response to GOP senators’ questions about the administration’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on a diplomatic posting in Benghazi, Libya, and Vice President Joe Biden worked the phones in hopes of finding the necessary votes to overcome the de-facto filibuster.

Recommended: Obama hits Georgia to sell new childhood initiatives

The 60-vote threshold means that Hagel’s nomination is, in effect, being subjected to a filibuster. Because Republicans are objecting to ending debate – often a formality in the Senate, where lawmakers give their “unanimous consent” to moving forward with a vote – Democrats must deliver the same 60 votes that they would need under the circumstances of a filibuster to end debate on the Hagel nomination.

Republicans argued that they were not orchestrating a formal filibuster against Hagel – a maneuver which would be unprecedented in the instance of a nominee for the secretary of defense position.

Some GOP senators – led by Sens. John McCain, Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, S.C. – said that they just needed a little more time to thoroughly vet Hagel’s background, despite having served with the former Nebraska senator during the bulk of his two terms in the Senate. Graham and McCain argued that they needed more time than the two days that have elapsed since the armed services panel approved Hagel’s nomination for consideration by the whole Senate.

This story was originally published on Thu Feb 14, 2013 4:56 PM EST

Chuck Hagel’s nomination just hit a major obstacle.

Hagel will not have the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster at tomorrow’s scheduled cloture vote, Republican leadership told Majority Leader Harry Reid Thursday, according to a Senate Democratic aide.

"My Republican colleagues had led us to believe they would not filibuster Senator Chuck Hagel's confirmation as Secretary of Defense,” Reid (D-NV) said in a statement released by his office. “But that has changed. Now, Senate Republicans have made it clear they intend to mount a full-scale filibuster, and block the Senate from holding a final passage vote on Senator Hagel's nomination. Make no mistake: Republicans are trying to defeat Senator Hagel's nomination by filibustering while submitting extraneous requests that will never be satisfied."

All 55 Democrats are supporting Hagel. But just two Republicans have said they would vote for their former colleague, a Republican from Nebraska – Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Mike Johanns (R-NE). Hagel would need three more for his nomination to be able to proceed to an up-or-down vote, which Reid said would happen Saturday.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Susan Collins (R-ME) previously said they would not support a filibuster of Hagel, which would have given Hagel enough votes.

“I just do not believe a filibuster is appropriate, and I would oppose such a move," McCain said, adding, "I will try to make that argument to my colleagues.”

But McCain and Blunt have changed their tunes.

Republicans, like Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), ranking member on the Armed Services Committee that considered Hagel’s nomination, are arguing that what they are doing is not a “filibuster.” They just want more information, they say, on his finances and speeches -- despite the answers Hagel submitted to the standard Senate questionnaire, as well as his contentious hearing.

That's something that caused Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) to accuse Republicans of an "unprecedented" double standard.

McCain, for one, wants more information from the White House on the attacks in Benghazi.

On MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown last week, Blunt was asked if he would support a filibuster of Hagel’s nomination.

“I doubt it; I doubt it,” he said. “I think for somebody who’s going to be there the length of time the president serves, as opposed to a Supreme Court judge, that a majority in the Senate should be able to confirm. I wouldn’t intend to be a part of that majority, but certainly my strong inclination would be that this is a vote that should be done by a majority, rather than a 60-vote standard. And this person is going to leave the day the president leaves. That makes a difference.”

Yet, Blunt’s office contends Blunt’s current position is not a switch.

“He hasn’t changed his original position at all,” said Amber Marchand, Blunt’s spokeswoman. “He’s just pointing out that Senator Hagel and the Obama Admin have not produced all of the information that’s been requested, and there has not been time for a full debate in the Senate, therefore the Senate should not move forward on a vote this week.”

Reid argued Thursday morning on the Senate floor that Republicans were playing politics with national security.

“For the sake of our national security, it’s time to put aside this political theater,” Reid said, accusing them of being more concerned about primaries and the Tea Party.

He said opponents were seeking delay after delay, saying there's been "one stall after another."

Hagel would be just the third cabinet secretary to require the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. The other two were Dirk Kempthorne, George W. Bush’s nominee for Interior Secretary in 2006, and C. Williams Verity, Ronald Reagan’s pick to be Commerce Secretary in 1987, according to the Congressional Research Service. 

Both, however, were easily confirmed and cleared the cloture hurdle, 85-8.

There has never been a cabinet secretary nominee who was successfully filibustered.

There have, however, been other high-level, non-judicial nominees, who have also required 60 votes.

For example:

2010- Ben Bernanke (Fed Chair, cloture invoked, passed 77-23)
2009- Hilda Solis (Labor, cloture invoked, but withdrawn)
2006- Dirk Kempthorne (Interior, cloture invoked, passed 85-8)
2005- Rob Portman (USTR, cloture invoked, but vitiated)
2005- John Bolton (US Amb to UN, cloture invoked, nomination rejected 54-38)
2005- Steven L. Johnson (EPA administrator, cloture invoked, passed 61-37)
2003- Michael Leavitt (EPA admin, cloture invoked but withdrawn)
1987- C. Willliam Verity (Commerce, cloture invoked, passed 85-8)

The Senate will hold a test vote on Friday to move toward final confirmation of former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., as President Barack Obama's next secretary of defense.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday that he planned to hold a procedural vote on Friday at a to-be-determined time on Hagel's nomination. The vote isn't final confirmation on the nomination, but it could presage the former senator's chances at winning approval from his former colleagues.

Democrats will need 60 votes to move forward with the nomination, requiring the support of at least a few Republicans. Some conservatives have sought to block the Hagel nomination outright, though other Republicans have said they wouldn't block the nomination from moving forward, even though they intended to vote against Hagel's final confirmation.

Still, Democrats lamented that this instance was the first time in which Republicans had essentially filibustered a defense secretary nominee, because Republicans are demanding that Reid meet the threshold of support needed to end a filibuster.

After an angry two-hour debate, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to approve the nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense Tuesday, setting the stage for a Senate floor vote on his confirmation, possibly later this week.

The vote was along party lines, 14 to 11, with another likely “no” vote from Sen. David Vitter, R-La. to be added later.

Recommended: Senate renews Violence Against Women Act, sending to House for action

Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said although some Republican senators strongly oppose Obama’s policies, the vote on Hagel nomination “will not change those policies.”

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Former Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing to become the next secretary of defense on Capitol Hill Jan. 31, 2013.

Levin added that he saw a risk that the defeat of Hagel’s nomination would leave the Defense Department “leaderless” at a time of budget pressures and when “our military is engaged in combat operations overseas.”

Levin said that especially on the day that North Korea had detonated a nuclear device, a delay in approving the nomination would “send the exact wrong message to North Korea.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., cited Hagel’s service as an Army soldier in the Vietnam War as a prime reason to vote for him. “That told me right there everything I needed to know – that he would not hesitate to defend this country,” said Manchin.

But a leading Hagel opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said confirming the former Nebraska senator as defense secretary “will make military conflict in the next four years substantially more likely” because it would encourage the Tehran regime to accelerate its nuclear weapons development program.

Cruz also insinuated that Hagel might have given as-yet undisclosed speeches to “extreme or radical groups” or received money from foreign sources or from defense contractors in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Senate rules require a cabinet nominee to disclose fees and payments he received in excess of $5,000 in the two years prior to the nomination. Hagel complied with that rule, but Cruz sought information about payments he’d gotten in the five years prior to his nomination.

Coming to Hagel’s defense, Levin countered that the nominee had told the committee that in the past ten years he has not received any compensation from foreign governments or entities controlled by a foreign government.

Following Cruz’s harsh criticism of Hagel, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., charged that “Sen. Cruz has gone over the line” by implying Hagel was too cozy with Tehran regime. “He basically has impugned the patriotism of the nominee."

Cruz then answered Nelson, denying that he’d impugned Hagel’s patriotism and said that instead he had questioned his firmness in dealing with Iran.

Levin told Cruz if he had uncovered evidence that Hagel had not truthfully answered the panel’s questions or requests for financial information, he should provide it to the committee.

Two weeks ago, Hagel delivered an often stumbling and awkward performance in his confirmation hearing before the committee, repeatedly having to retract, clarify, apologize for, or amend his views or the manner in which he phrased them.

Recommended: Amid partisan wrangling, Obama to lay out agenda in State of the Union

The low point came when Levin had to correct Hagel’s clarification on President Barack Obama’s position on Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon.

“It was the most unimpressive performance that I have seen in watching many nominees who came before the committee,” said Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., at Tuesday’s committee meeting, later adding that Hagel’s testimony was “the worst I have seen of any nominee for office.”

McCain said it was “very disturbing” that Hagel had not answered McCain’s question about the success of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq in 2007.

The Arizona Republican also condemned what he called Hagel’s “gratuitous” rhetorical attacks on President George W. Bush.

Another Hagel foe, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said “there’s the left lane in politics, the right lane, and the middle lane – and when it comes to some of the Iranian-Israeli issues, there’s the Chuck Hagel lane … There are very few people who have been this wrong about so many different things.”

Senate Republican leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., indicated in comments to reporters a few hours before the committee Tuesday that Republican senators might insist on extended floor debate on the nomination, perhaps requiring a cloture vote, needing 60 senators, to end debate.

“I wouldn't be surprised if we do have a cloture vote on the Hagel nomination,” McConnell said.

He added that “Every time the (the Democratic) majority files cloture, they call it a filibuster. Cloture vote actually is designed to end debate and to go to a vote.”

He explained that, “Sometimes cloture is not invoked because there has not been adequate information that been requested, yet received. Sometimes cloture is not invoked because you want to kill a nomination. There are a number of members on the committee who feel the requests for information have not yet been met.”

There are 55 senators in the Democratic caucus so if the Republicans insist on a cloture vote, then five GOP senators would need to join the Democrats in ending the debate and moving to a confirmation vote.

NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Kelly O’Donnell contributed to this story

Published 12:23 p.m. ET -- Although stung by attacks from his former Republican colleagues in the Senate, Chuck Hagel is bracing to fight back against his critics and has no intention of withdrawing as the nominee to be Defense Secretary, according to the former senator's brother.  

"He's not going to walk away from this," said Tom Hagel, who spoke to his older brother about the looming confirmation battle on Sunday night. "The way he's responding to this, he's just going to fight harder." 

Tom Hagel's comments to NBC News came Monday just moments before Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, announced the panel will vote Tuesday on Hagel's nomination.

They also came amid mounting signs that some Republican senators are gearing up to try and fight it with a filibuster. On Sunday, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a member of the committee, vowed to put a hold on the nomination -- as well as that of John Brennan to be CIA director -- if the administration does not provide more information about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services panel, said he was weighing a filibuster.

But other Republicans senators, including Arizona Sen. John McCain, Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Susan Collins (R-ME) -- have said they would not support a filibuster. It's not clear Graham would have the votes to go through with one.

There was also speculation the former Nebraska senator might pull his name as a result. Widely respected defense analyst Tom Ricks wrote Friday he believed there was a 50-50 chance Hagel would withdraw.

Tom Hagel, who served with his older brother in the Army during Vietnam and sat behind him during his rocky Jan. 31st confirmation hearing, described Chuck Hagel as "committed" and "optimistic"  that he will be confirmed as Defense Secretary.    

"I don't think there is any possibility" he will withdraw-unless he's asked to do so by President Obama, Tom Hagel said.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Former Senator Chuck Hagel testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing to become the next secretary of defense on Capitol Hill January 31, 2013 in Washington, DC.

The White House appeared to shoot down any hint of that Monday.

"We are absolutely committed to the Hagel nomination," said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman.

Tom Hagel said his brother was "shocked" by the level of personal animosity to his nomination from his former GOP colleagues in the Senate.

He also indicated that both he and his brother were upset about the blizzard of TV ads from anonymously funded advocacy groups attacking his nomination, calling the ads "absolutely gutless." He added, "If these people have integrity and believe in what they are doing, why don't they put their names to it?"

But while his brother was "tired" by the ordeal and it has taken a "personal toll," Tom Hagel said his brother was "ready to deal with it" and prepared "to respond to whatever attacks come out."