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Schumer Calls it a Day

by: James L.

Mon Nov 24, 2008 at 6:32 PM EST


The AP:

Sen. Charles Schumer said Monday he is giving up his job running the Senate Democrats' national campaign efforts after two successful elections.

"We've had a great run," said Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee since the 2006 campaign, when he helped engineer a 6-seat gain that gave his party a slim 1-vote majority margin.

Chuck had one hell of a run, and it's a shame to see him go. It looks like New Jersey's Bob Menendez, a current DSCC vice-chair, will likely take over the reins. Let's hope he can make some inspired recruiting moves like Chuck was able to do on more than one occasion.
James L. :: Schumer Calls it a Day
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Schumer Calls it a Day | 37 comments
Quite a run
Minimum gain of 13 seats over two cycles, putting the party within walking distance of a supermajority in 2010 if the come up short in the remaining two races still undecided.

You done good, Chuck.

Touche
Also not losing a single seat either year is equally important and deserves a lot of credit as well.
[ Parent ]
Zero losses
That numbers means a hell of a lot too.  The closest republicans came to winning a Dem-held Senate seat was their 6 point loss to Landrieu in 2008.  That's amazing.  Not only did republicans not win a single democratic Senate seat in two elections, they didn't even come close.
[ Parent ]
I HEART Schumer!
He did so much to whip Democrats back into shape... Enough to win at least 13 Senate seats in less than 4 years! This is simply amazing, and he'll be dearly missed.

What is it about New York's Senators that makes them so awesome? Schumer's helped us so much to build & expand our Senate Majority. And of course, the other NY Senator looks to be our next great Secretary of State.

I love New York! ;-)

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)

[ Parent ]
My slight concern with Menendez
Being from New Jersey, I've followed Menendez for quite some time.  I have no doubt that he will be able to raise money and input some sharp strategy into the DSCC.  

However, Menendez has the charisma of a dead fish, and I really wonder if the guy will be able to apply the same intelligent, relentless, and ultimately effective recruiting that Schumer used.  I am question whether Menendez will be able to close the deal with people like John Lynch, Brad Henry, Kate Sebelius, and others.  I am not terrified, just a little concerned.  Chuck is an impossible act to follow.

Charisma
in public is a bit different from charisma in private; Menendez is a skilled pol, so I don't doubt he's effective at person-to-person gladhanding.  You don't get to be the #4 Democrat in the House by not being like that.
[ Parent ]
I'd agree
Menendez seems to be very well thought of amogn his peers, so I'm sure he's very good behind closed doors and face to face with people.  He should do fine.  Heck, with all the endangered republicans and republicans likely to retire from the Senate his work should be fairly easy recruiting wise.
[ Parent ]
Kathleen is still probable for a cabinet position...
Brad Henry hasn't shown any interest in running for senate.  You can't blame Menendez for those just like we can't blame Schumer for Mike Easley or Brad Miller not running against Dole, and DeFazio not running against Smith in Oregon.  (Even though we won those races anyways, they would have been put away sooner and opened up the map)
[ Parent ]
Probably less of a problem
We have a cushion now and with Republicans still in the whole, Democrats should be eager to run for Senate.

It won't be so hard to persuade seemingly anti-Washington governors to run and given that they frankly don't make great senators, not having Schumer around to clear the field for them might even be an advantage for a cycle or two.

Obviously, the tide is likely to turn at some point, but I'd argue we have enough breathing space to warmly thank Chuck Schumer and aim for the best senators we can get. And if dead fish Menendez can't get A-list moderates, that's not really a concern any more.

[ Parent ]
Menendez is probably the next head
And Amy Klobachar will probably be vice chair. Hopefully Chuck will still have some role
OT: Florida Gov. Crist Planning Future Presidential Run?
He's still planning on getting married (to a woman surprisingly) on December 12.  Almost everyone thought his "marriage" would get called off once McCain didn't pick him for VP.  This has to increase the chances of him running for national office in the future.

Then again Florida did ban gay marriage earlier this month, so that could be part of it.

http://www.wesh.com/news/18048...

Invitations To Gov. Crist's Wedding Mailed

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Invitations to Gov. Charlie Crist's upcoming nuptials are in the mail, and the guest list to the Dec. 12 event has become a source of chatter around the state.

The cream and pale pink invitations to Crist and fiancee Carole Rome's ceremony at First United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg began arriving last week.


As we've asked in the past
Please try to keep the conversation on topic. If you have something interesting that merits conversation, please feel free to post a diary. Thanks.
[ Parent ]
we'll need some recruiting in Iowa
It's always hard to find anyone to challenge Grassley, because the odds of defeating him are so slim. But who knows? He could get fed up and decide to retire if Baucus stops playing nice with him and he knows he'll face a serious challenger (Tom Vilsack? Christie Vilsack?).
Agreed
Vilsack seems to be out of the running for the USDA. Maybe he's preparing a Senate bid? He seems like a pretty ambitious pol, it doesn't seem like him to just sit around and that's going to be the only opportunity in the foreseeable future for him to get back in the game.  
[ Parent ]
It would be nice
to see Vilsack step up.  It's such a shame when candidates shrivel up at a hard race, when it is the only race to be made.

Grassley, Specter and Gregg are from solid blue states. Voinovich and Burr from purple ones that would be pushed light blue by taking those seats.  What is needed is for the people who can take those seats to not shiver in their boots and try.

There are a LOT of seats that should be picked up if a  strong candidate (who we can easily identify right now) is persuaded to take up the challenge.

[ Parent ]
Yeah, why not?
Rhode Island (2006), New Hampshire (2008), & Oregon (2008) prove that it's not impossible to unseat faux-moderate Republicans in Blue States. All we need are a strong candidate & a solid message... And we win!

I don't know why some are afraid of Iowa & Ohio... Or even North Carolina at this point! Of the three states up for 2012, only Voinovich can even come close to claiming the "moderate" label. Still, all three seem awfully out of touch with their states' current political leanings.

Worst case scenario: We scare all these GOPers into caving into Reid & Obama, and we have ourselves a working Dem/moderate GOP supermajority.

Best case scenario: We scare at least one (or maybe all three!) out of running for reelection with solid recruits and continued "bluing" of these states! ;-)

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)

[ Parent ]
Grassley's as entrenched as Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins
Not that we probably wouldn't be favored in an open-seat contest, but if I were advising Vilsack, I certainly wouldn't tell him to run against Grassley. Looking at how Obama did in the state doesn't guarantee anything, I live in New Mexico, and while it might've seemed like Udall was always destined to win that Senate seat, if Pete Domenici would've decided to run for re-election, there would be no way in hell any top-tier Democrats would've ever run against him (that attorney scandal aside, Domenici is still extremely popular in my state, Udall would've never run against him, neither would Chavez, Denish, Richardson, or anyone else).

Chuck Grassley's been very good about bringing home the bacon and fits his state relatively well, we should hope for a retirement so we can take the seat away, absent that, no top-tier challenger will go after him.

Now, we have some extremely strong prospects in states like Ohio and North Carolina, to be sure, but you have to keep in mind that Iowa isn't really THAT Democratic compared to the country (Obama won Iowa by nine, but this has to be taken in the context of the rest of the country, which he won by 7). Ohio is actually LESS Democratic than the rest of the country is. Now, I'm not saying that these places are horrible horrible places for Democrats, I'm pointing out that they're not as Democratic as you'd think and must be treated as such.

Politics and Other Random Topics

24, Male, Democrat, NM-01, Chairman of the Atheist Caucus, and Majority Leader of the "Going to Hell" caucus!

[ Parent ]
True, I guess...
But then again, who would have guessed we'd knock off Lincoln Chafee in 2006? Or Gordon Smith this year? Sure, we have no guarantee this could happen again. Still, we'll never know if we don't try.

Now don't get me wrong. I know Ohio & North Carolina are behind the national curve in terms of the Obama vote while Iowa is just barely ahead of the curve. All of these are tough challenges, especially in Iowa where Grassley still seems popular.

I guess we'll just have to see who's up to the challenge. And maybe if Obama looks to be awfully successful in the next year and/or Democrats flex some real muscle in the Senate, perhaps we can convince a couple of these GOPers to retire.  

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)

[ Parent ]
My own suspicion is...
Grassley retires, he's getting up there in age. I'd also caution that Lincoln Chafee wasn't really all that entrenched, and he was running in a state like Rhode Island after a really strong primary challenge from that Laffey dude (and even then, we only beat him by 6 points, in a state like Rhode Island!)

Besides, we can probably make a race of it in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, and New Hampshire, so I'm not at all concerned about the 2010 Senate races (it's really 2012 that I'd be worried about, all of our freshmen are going to be up for re-election and there are only going to really be one or two Republicans we'd realistically be able to target, oy...)

Politics and Other Random Topics

24, Male, Democrat, NM-01, Chairman of the Atheist Caucus, and Majority Leader of the "Going to Hell" caucus!

[ Parent ]
2012
will be a defensive cycle, and, since it coincides with the next election, a lot will depend on how Obama does.

The good news for the Democrats in that regard is that four of the six gains came in states that Obama won in 2008 (decisively, in most cases), and in the two states he didn't (Montana and Missouri) he still performed strongly.

[ Parent ]
Ya, it's not so much seats won in 2006
It's the chance of retirements.  We have a lot of ageing Senators and almost no retirements in 2006 or 2008.  We could see more 2012 and 2014 Democratic Senator retirements as a result.
[ Parent ]
There's also the fact
That we have the vast majority of the seats that will be up for election. There are only 9 Republican seats and 22 Democratic ones (and 2 independents).

And three of those seats are Utah, Wyoming and Mississippi.

2014 could also very well be mostly defensive, as there are a lot of very Republican seats that will be up and we've got most of the rest.

[ Parent ]
Inspired recruits
"Let's hope he can make some inspired recruiting moves like Chuck was able to do on more than one occasion."

Golden oldies: Bruce Lunsford (KY) and John Morrison (MT). I'm hoping I was wrong about Hagan (NC) and that she turns out to be a solid moderate and not a reactionary.

Hagan is Lawton Chiles's Niece FWIW

[ Parent ]
Schumer directly recruited at least 6 of the 13 winners:
Hagan (NC), Casey (PA), Webb (VA), Brown (OH), Tom Udall (NM), and Merkley (OR).  In most of these states, Senator Schumer's recruiting made the difference between winning and losing.  And, in cases such as New Mexico, it allowed DSCC resources to be spent in other states, leading to even more victories.
[ Parent ]
And Schumer has my thanks for Udall
God it feels SO good to get a Democrat to replace Pete Domenici :D

Politics and Other Random Topics

24, Male, Democrat, NM-01, Chairman of the Atheist Caucus, and Majority Leader of the "Going to Hell" caucus!

[ Parent ]
Groan.
Yes, let's harp on every single possible mistake Schumer made.  And I'm not so sure Lunsford was a mistake, as his self-funding tied up McConnell and prevented him from helping other Republican Senators.  Had a full-on progressive been our nominee, in a state like Kentucky, the results probably would've been more like the 18-point blowouts in Nebraska and Oklahoma.

And "reactionary"?  Really?  I mean, geez, you sound like Howie Kl.... oh.

[ Parent ]
Don't be too harsh
Schumer wasn't a progressive DSCC head. And such a thing seems oxymoronic, since the Senate is by its very nature anti-progressive and as such would hardly want to recruit those who don't share its aims.

But Schumer was a very good Democratic DSCC head. And some of those decisions weren't bad. Just to consider the two you brought up, Lunsford kept McConnell worried and didn't need DSCC support, whilst Morrison wouldn't have been as good a candidate as Tester, but he wouldn't have been much worse as a senator (even if that is mostly because Jon Tester is not, as was rumoured, the second coming of Jesus Christ).

Celebrate his victories, and also celebrate that without him forcing rockstar moderates into races, we can get a lot more progressives through primaries.

[ Parent ]
well,
traditionally the spot is never held by members who are running for reelection. Menendez can run and raise money and play party politics just as good as Schumer, (another note would be how for the last eight years a new york city area politician). Mispelled "Char" by the way, note in Mississippi ;).

In other "appointment" news, I think many can take a sigh of relief, Peterson seems to have taken himself out of the running for Secretary of Agriculture, saying he doesn't intend to leave his Chairmanship of that Committee. Herseth-Sandlin seems to have left consideration, and I have my dibs on Tom Buis, head of the National Farmers Union.  

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus

Well, at least Nevada...
(Slightly O/T, but not too much!)

Won't be too much of a worry for Sen. Menendez or Majority Leader Reid!

http://www.lasvegasgleaner.com...

Haha. Lt. Gov. "Krooklicki" was the top recruit for Nevada Rethuglicans. Now that it looks like he's in for an indictment for his mishandling of state college savings program, we may finally be able to stick a fork in Krooklicki's political future. So let's hope he gets what's due... And Senator Reid won't have to worry about those GOP Clowns so that he can focus on making President Obama's agenda happen! :-)

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)

I still think
Jon Porter could be a star recruit, if Cornyn can convince him to give it a go.
[ Parent ]
even after losing his own seat by a big
margin? To an extremely prominent, and somewhat contgroversial liberal candidate?

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus
[ Parent ]
To be fair...
It wasn't very big, just 5%. Still, I feel so proud to have part of Porter's political scalp hanging on my bedroom wall. Dina Titus ROCKS!

And yes, I still agree with you that Porter's probably DOA here. Dina effectively did Reid a big favor in knocking Jon Porter out of Congress so his Senate chances went from possible to quite unlikely. Same goes with Shirley Breeden knocking off the moderate GOP State Senator Joe Heck in Henderson, another GOPer who wanted to challenge Reid in 2010 before his political career was poisoned 3 weeks ago.

I guess the motto here is: "Don't Mess With Papa Reid." Ah, if only California Democrats had 1/4 of Reid's spine! They'd probably already have off'ed Ahhnuld and legalized marriage equality for good by now!

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)

[ Parent ]
But Dean Heller remains.
Any chance of him trying to move up to the Senate?  Not only does he represent most of the Nevada land, but he got more votes than anyone running for the House in Nevada.  Heller got (per the DailyKos scoreboard) over 170,000 votes, while Dina Titus only got over 165,000 votes in her win, and even Shelley Berkley only got about 154,000 votes (though if it had been remotely competitive, she probably could've gotten more Obama voters to vote for her too).
[ Parent ]
Doubt it...
First off, rumor has it that Heller wants the Governor's seat. And think about it, it would be easier for Heller to knock off the universally hated incumbent Rethuglican Governor Jim Gibbons in the primary than to mount a nearly flawless campaign to oust Harry Reid in newly Blue Nevada.

Also, remember that the 2nd District is more GOP leaning than the state overall. Hard-line conservative Heller may be OK in his more center-right home district, but he'll likely have a harder time appealing to more center-left voters in the 1st & 3rd Districts in Dark Blue Clark County. I don't even think the Governor's race is a slam dunk for him IF he ousts Gibbons in the primary (especially if we have a strong Dem running like Masto, Buckley, or Rory Reid), so I seriously doubt he'd want to face a likely kamikaze campaign against Harry Reid for Senate.

Yes, Virginia, there ARE progressives in Nevada!
24, gay male, Democrat, NV-03 (or 04?)

[ Parent ]
what about Las Vegas
mayor Oscar Goodman? I know the right wing rag the Las Vegas Review-Journal hates him with a passion, (attacking him on a regular basis, publishing a book calling a mob spokesman, and also naming him with dubious awards many time), but he's popular right? Despite supporting prostitution, his mafia connections, his funny statements about cutting people's fingers off and telling elementary kids that his hobby is drinking Bombay Saphire Gin, (I just can't forget that one). Would he be a good candidate for governator.

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus
[ Parent ]
Drinking Bombay Sapphire is a good hobby
And hey, at least he isn't encouraging schoolchildren to drink bad gin. That I could never support. Well, not unless it's on special offer.
[ Parent ]
Schumer Calls it a Day | 37 comments

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