Politically speaking, what is Chuck Hagel up to ?

Chucky's lambasted his own party repeatedly and called Bush incompetent, then setout to retire from his Senate seat because he's fed up with his party, has commented he would consider running on the Dem ticket and even called Hillary capable for the job of the presidency. Now bring Mayor Bloomberg of NYC into the picture, and we have news of Bloomy's dinner dates, 1st with Obama recently, and now with (R) Senator Chuck Hagel, along with several phone calls they've been batting back and forth. Bloomie for his part, a billionaire who takes the subway to work, used to be a Democrat, then switched to Republican, and recently switched to Independent. These 2 are intelligent, charismatic, well respected politicians and if they make a run as a 3rd party, there's no telling which party ticket they would hurt the most. This is an interesting turn of events to keep an eye on.