So how 'bout Schumer for veep.?

[Smarmie Doofus]

Not my choice by a long shot; but he's a Clintonite, ultra-pro Israel, pro military in general yet checkerboardedly progressive on economic, constitutional and other domestic issues.

Seems like he'd solve a number of problems for our #1 guy.... although, granted, he'll create a few new ones.

Just thinking out loud.



And while we're on the subject, how 'bout this guy to run with McCain:

>>>>Michael Dean "Mike" Crapo (pronounced "Cray-poe") (born May 20, 1951) is the junior United States Senator from Idaho. He is a member of the Republican Party.

Contents
1 Education and early career
2 U.S. Senate
2.1 Committee Assignments
3 Environmental record
4 Personal life
5 Electoral history
6 Footnotes
7 External links



Education and early career
Crapo was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho to Melba Olsen and George Lavelle Crapo.<1> He is distantly related to Henry Howland Crapo, who served as Governor of Michigan from 1865 to 1869, and William Crapo Durant, Henry's grandson, who founded General Motors. Mike Crapo and Henry Crapo are first cousins, five times removed, as Henry's father, Jesse Crapo, and Mike's great-great-great grandfather, Charles Crapo, were brothers. Crapo earned a B.A. from Brigham Young University in 1973 and J.D. from the Harvard Law School in 1977. He served for one year as clerk to Judge James M. Carter, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit and then returned to Idaho to become a lawyer. While practicing law in Idaho Falls, Idaho in the 1980s, he was active in the Republican >>>>>

Lots more on wiki.

As Idaho goes... so goes Wyoming. Sorry... again, just thinking out loud.

[Muttocracy]

1. No. nt

[WorseBeforeBetter]

2. Unh uh. (n/t)

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Schumer Fought Hard To Keep Income Taxes On Hedge Fund Managers At 15%

He's a darling of the Predator Class. No thanks.

[MonkeyFunk]

25. Huh?

The income tax rate is 15% for people who make less than 32k a year. What are you talking about?

[vaberella]

27. I think that's what he's talking about. Schumer fought for that...

killing the poor or working class. While the rich in New York live like kings.

[MonkeyFunk]

30. He fought for Hedge Fund managers to be taxed at 15% on income?

Got a link? That sounds ridiculous.

[MannyGoldstein]

34. Link

"In June, senior House Democrats separately proposed raising the tax rate on the investment gains of fund managers — known as “carried interest” — to the ordinary income tax rate of as much as 35 percent, from the capital gains rate of 15 percent.

If adopted, the House proposal would more than double the tax rate for most of the compensation received by the partners at private equity and hedge funds and would raise billions of dollars annually in tax revenue.

Mr. Schumer discounted any suggestion that the campaign contributions from the industry had influenced his thinking, and said he had heard from industry executives who supported some of the proposals to raise their taxes. But interviews with people in and outside the industry indicate that there is overwhelming opposition to the measures and that any support from within the industry ranks is token."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/washington/30schumer.html?ei=5090&en=59c40a9b43932760&ex=1343448000&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1185801448-7OgzgAkBmxoX8TAUuq+KBw

[MonkeyFunk]

35. oh, OK

it's about capital gains tax rates, not income rates.

[cliffordu]

4. Nope. Enough with the god damned republican'ts

[lastliberalintexas]

5. I might have to go 3rd party

ANY republican, and I vote 3rd party. I'd like to think that I'll still be able to vote Dem with any other VP choice, but Schumer, Nunn or Bayh- I don't know. Schumer's just an ass.

[jarjarbing]

6. Obama's support among Jews is strong

Schummer is a great senator, but I don't think Obama really needs help to secure the Jewish vote. It's already there.

[Smarmie Doofus]

15. I'm not so sure. According to NYTimes,

Obama is 20 pts' behind McCain in Israel. Israelis of course, can't vote. But it's axiomatic that the American Jewish community ( as a whole) is more hawkish on Israel than Israelis themselves are.

Might be a matter of time til they catch up.

[ruggerson]

7. Well aside from his sparkling charisma and his ability to bring in crucial midwestern states

uh, it's an idea. A terrible one, but an idea nevertheless. :P

[Smarmie Doofus]

18. Actually, he's not that bad... charisma-wise.

He surprised me with how personable he was on Charlie Rose about a year ago. ( ok, go ahead; laugh!)

He rarely appears in that type of venue, though.

Mind you: I don't like his politics... and don't particularly like *him*. I'm just sayin' that he might be *considered*.

[derby378]

8. No. Fucking. Way.

He's a Bush appeaser along with Dianne Feinstein, and thus a millstone around Obama's neck.

[Smarmie Doofus]

19. I think the idea here is to broaden Obama's appeal....

.... and get him thereby elected.

He can send Chuck on a four year goodwill tour of outer-Mongolia, once this is accomplished.

[newmajority]

9. Two words

Michael Mukasey.

Schumer? fuck no.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Not another Senator.

[Golden Raisin]

11. Schumer pimped for Mukasey.

He's the kind of wheeler-dealer Beltway insider Obama should be distancing himself from if he's really interested in change.

[Colobo]

12. Nah.

[femmocrat]

13. Schumer:

:thumbsdown:

But... I like Crapo's name... has a nice "ring" to it.

[Smarmie Doofus]

20. That's "CRAY-poh", to you; and don't you forget it..

Apparently there's been a slew of Crapos in politics... according to Wiki. Though with that name, I don't know how.

Maybe they shortened it from "Crapola", cause that sounded too ethnic.

But you're right: "McCain-Crapo".

Rolls right off the tongue.

[movonne]

14. Schumer is kinda like Lieberman...

[Smarmie Doofus]

21. Any ideas McCain is entertaining of VEEPING Lieberman....

... to cut into Lieberman admirers will have to be scuttled. Think of Chuck as "Lieberman Light." Potential crossover DEMS will have a plausible reason to stay with Obama.

[Historic NY]

16. Your kidding right............

[Smarmie Doofus]

24. Well ,,no. I realize this is out of the box thinking..

I'm not a Schumer admirer myself ( though I did volunteer for him when he ran against Damato) but I think it's important to hang on to as much of what the media calls "the center" as possible.

Schumer's not *completely* evil. He's not Helms. He's not even Lieberman.

If Clinton herself could be considered , why not Schumer?

[Historic NY]

31. As much good as he does he cuts people like a knife, he does

a better job herding the Senate cats. He has a fairly high profile that irks Rethugicans in the state.

[ladjf]

17. Are you joking?

[saltpoint]

22. Schumer is staggerlingly intelligent. I think he aced his ACT test scores

and he's considered one of the sharpest minds around.

He owned that last Senate re-election campaign. He just owned it. He owned it early and he owned it deep and he owned it all.

Despite some disillusion with Schumer on specific issues, I hope many DUers would consider how comprehensively piss-poor a public servant the man Schumer replaced really was -- Alfonse D'Amato -- a diseased rat's dingleberry if there ever was one.

So well before any specific-issue disillusionment can be registered, great, bone-deep sighs of gratitude must be heard for Schumer's vanquishing the loathsome Al D'Amato from the United States Senate.

That said, Obama is not going to choose Schumer when the runner-up in the primary contest is Schumer's colleague in the Senate. Obama would not be publicly seen jilting Hillary Clinton in favor of the other U.S. Senator from New York. That would be real bad form and toss a careless match into a dry haystack.

If you were casting a film and went looking for someone to play the extremely bright and equally extremely influential senior Senator from the Empire State, you wouldn't do any better than to cast Chuck Schumer.

[Smarmie Doofus]

28. NY DEMS tried to KO Damato with three separate progressives...

>>>>So well before any specific-issue disillusionment can be registered, great, bone-deep sighs of gratitude must be heard for Schumer's vanquishing the loathsome Al D'Amato from the United States Senate. >>>

of the bona fide variety and failed three times. They finally nominated a Javits/Rockefeller Republican( philosophically speaking ) who was registered as a DEM and Damato was history. Point: Successful DEMS in NYS run to the right of the nat'l party. Further point: Schumer will ( as Clinton probably would have done ) move to the left as a nat'l DEM leader.

>>>>That said, Obama is not going to choose Schumer when the runner-up in the primary contest is Schumer's colleague in the Senate. Obama would not be publicly seen jilting Hillary Clinton in favor of the other U.S. Senator from New York. That would be real bad form and toss a careless match into a dry haystack.>>>>

Don't agree at all. Everyone knows Obama doesn't want Clinton looking over his shoulder for the next four years. Clintonites... except for her truly fanatically devoted hard core.... will understand this and be grateful that a prominent ( but not particularly ambitious) member of her campaign is being incorporated into the nat'l ticket.

[saltpoint]

29. I was answering as if the political landscape Obama works in were

Obama's objective landscape and not mine as an individual (former) voter of NY State. I was a resident of New York City for 3 years or so and a Bella Abzug/Mario Cuomo zealot.

Would that Ms. Abzug had defeated Moynihan in that Senate primary race. Or Ramsey Clark in his efforts for the job. Either would have been my preference over the U.N. bobbleheaded Moynihan.

Clinton poses a difficult problem for Obama were he to select her over say, Biden or Reed or Richardson, and if you like the Clintons you won't mind that it's difficult and if you don't like them all that much you might see why Obama would -- or might -- prefer to navigate without an ex-president wandering thru the corridors answering calls coming in from who knows where or whom.

If Obama wins in November and I believe he will, he'll win on his own arguments and merits. I don't personally feel he would choose Clinton, but I think he'd consider Schumer out of bounds because of tender sore spots left over from the primary campaign.

Also I think Schumer will not accept a position with less power (the vice presidency) than the one he currently holds.

[Tutonic]

23. Mukasey? He owned it.

[vaberella]

26. Schumer is my Senator but hell no. I like the guy (one of the rare ones)....but...

He's not fit for Veep. Plus he's an ardent HRC supporter. I feel overall that Obama needs someone closer to his way of thinking and that's not Schumer, much like Rendell is not fit for the role of Veep. Further more, much like Senator Clinton he's not that great of a Senator, however he is extremely diligent on immigrant rights and hence the reason I like him so much. His office helped my immigrant constituents a great deal.

[27inCali]

32. rather symbolic

should McCain..errrr.. go Crapo on his ticket

[scheming daemons]

33. 1000 times NO. He is not VP material. Keep him in the Senate

[rhett o rick]

36. Chuck No