NYT:Schumer Shows Senate Dems His Way to Re-election(will lead '06 effort)

[DeepModem Mom]

Schumer Shows Senate Democrats His Way to Re-election
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

Published: December 20, 2004


....As Senate Democrats prepare for the midterm elections of 2006 after a series of bruising losses this year, many are taking their cues from the New York senator, who has been tapped by Democratic leaders to try to engineer the party's Senate comeback. Mr. Schumer has buttonholed his colleagues over the last six weeks, trying to bring himself up to speed on the home-state political realities each of them faces and offering them advice. And he plans to get together with all of them at some point at the beginning of the year, when Congress returns to convene a new session, his aides say.

On the surface, Mr. Schumer might seem an unlikely choice to take a lead role in a national Democratic campaign: a Northeastern Democrat in a nation that gave Republicans a firm grip on Washington with victories in one state after another in the November elections.

But Democrats say that anyone skeptical about Mr. Schumer's qualifications need only to look at his record in New York, where he has combined a talent for publicity with an eye for issues that have bipartisan appeal and a reputation for exhaustive constituent service. He won re-election with a record 71 percent of the vote in November, including one-third of the Republican vote, much of it in rural and old industrial regions that independent political experts say resemble Midwest swing states like Ohio and Michigan....

***

In his mission to revive Democratic prospects in the Senate, he faces the immediate task of helping defend five Democratic senators in states that President Bush carried or did surprisingly well in, analysts say. They are Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mr. Dayton of Minnesota, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Bill Nelson of Florida. One of them, Mr. Dayton, said Mr. Schumer gave him one valuable piece of advice over dinner: hold regular news conferences on Sunday, a ploy Mr. Schumer has long used to avoid competing with major news for the press's attention....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/nyregion/20schumer.html?hp

[BayCityProgressive]

1. hopefully

he can help.

[Larkspur]

2. If Schumer holds the same views as Al From, then he'll lead the Dems

into perpetual minority status.

[GOPBasher]

5. No, he's not the same as Al From.

Schumer is no centrist. He's definitely to the left on economic issues and a social liberal.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

3. It doesn't matter...

... what democrats do until we get the electronic voting machines put into museums, including the GEMS tabulators.

[AP]

4. I think Schumer is a really really smart campaigner and a smart politician

even if I don't agree with him 100% on the issues.

[jpgray]

6. Second that

Too bad you can't transfer political talent by transferring the policies it came into contact with. If you could, Clinton's DLC-centrist platform would kingmake rather than bury everyone it touched.

[HockeyMom]

7. Mandate

Schumer got 72% of the vote in his relection. THAT, Mr. Bush, IS A MANDATE.

[quiet.american]

8. Schumer apparently has his uses

However, I'll never forget his diatribe which implied all Muslims "pray five times a day for our deaths" and his stamp of approval on Bush's War, which he gave as a guest speaker for the opening of the Tunnel to Towers run in New York City this past fall.

His remarks were an ugly, ugly thing.

[sweetheart]

9. I think i voted for him

I hope he does us all right. Go for it dude!