In what universe does Chuck Schumer think this makes him look good and Scott Brown look bad?
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he offered former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) a pass on his 2012 election, if the Massachusetts Republican supported campaign finance reform — but Brown declined.
Because of that, Schumer said he recruited Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to run for the seat she occupies today.
“You know I helped persuade her to run. There is a good little story,” Schumer told the New Republic in an interview.
“I can tell this. I went to Scott Brown and said, ‘If you give us the 60th vote for the Citizens United rollback, we won’t go after you.’ I spent a lot of time lobbying him, and met some of his friends and had them lobby him. He said ‘yes.’ Then he said ‘no.’ So I wanted to recruit the strongest candidate against him, and I thought that was Elizabeth Warren.”
Schumer was referring to the Disclose Act, which fell three votes short of advancing in the Senate in 2010.
He was in charge of winning Senate seats for the Democratic Party and he was willing to give Scott Brown of Massachusetts a six-year term in exchange for one vote? It wasn’t even the deciding vote.
I don’t think Chuck Schumer should speak anymore. He should just shut up.
Kos suggests Schumer is part of a coordinated anti-populist campaign (likely) but I’m not sure what this anecdote was supposed to convey. Maybe he is fighting back secretly against his Vampire Squid masters by being too incompetent to take seriously?
Have to agree with that. “Memes” spouted by pols in either party and telegraphed to the public by their like minded media flacks aren’t coincidental.
Probably ticks them off that having crushed the physical presence of Occupy that the message didn’t also disappear.
These are very bad people.
I found the kos explanation convincing
I used to think Schumer should be majority leader after Reid retires. His behavior over the past few weeks – on Iran, Wall Street, now this – is causing me to rapidly change my opinion. He is being too clever by half and if he continues it will cost him.
Chuck Schumer for majority leader? Dude is grimy. I’ve never considered him for any leadership position. Ever.
Well, he’s already part of the Senate leadership team. And that’s not an accident. Schumer is an excellent legislative strategist and parliamentarian.
He’s in leadership, just like Rahmbo and Steny were/are in the House, because they raise oodles of money from the plutocrats.
Way, way too much catering to his particular state interests to be an effective majority leader.
That’s probably true. Reid does too but he has the advantage of coming from a state that basically consists of one-and-a-half cities and the interests he caters to (gambling, Yucca Mountain) are parochial.
This is why the manned space program left Florida except for the launches and moved to Texas…
LBJ spent way too much time catering to his particular state interests…
I think it would have been a bigger problem for LBJ if the modern financial industry was headquartered in Dallas. And the fact that he was almost entirely funded by Texas oilmen wouldn’t fly in today’s Democratic party.
Today’s GOP, however, would be just fine with that…
Well, as far as I remember, Dems strongly supported the space program. And they probably cared very little where NASA was based.
I’m don’t think you can make the same claim about Schumer’s latest assertions, which benefit his state arguably at the expense of party cohesion.
Except it doesn’t even benefit his state, or NYC as a whole. Just the MOU’s.
Good luck with that. Schumer never misses an opportunity to not shut up. (Hence the standing joke about the danger to life and limb of getting between him and a TV camera.) Can’t help himself, even when what he says makes him look like an ass (or worse), as in this case.
So in Schumer’s mind this makes Brown look like a naive incompetent fool? He was too stupid to know how to hold onto his (fluke) seat? Don’t give Scott Brown too much credit for political smarts, eh, Chuck? This is the highest human “value”, of course.
And as you say, Schumer’s ego is so neutron-star massive that he can’t conceive how absurd this makes him look to the rabble base. There’s nothing in these power-broker heads but ego. Everything else has been smothered.
And Jeebus how many people are going to take credit for Warren (other than the 10,000 MA pavement-pounders and MA voters)? That’s who deserves the “credit”.
Finally Chuck, the (wholly inadequate) Disclose Act isn’t a “rollback” of Citizens United. Only a constitutional amendment can do that. You know, the sort of long term solution you strategical Dem titans never think of advocating or advancing.
Her supporters can take some credit, but the person who deserves the most credit for getting Elizabeth Warren elected is Elizabeth Warren.
That’s not true of all candidates … maybe not even most.
No, he was willing to not proactively recruit a strong Democrat to go after Brown – “we won’t go after you.” In Massachusetts. That’s like promising a Congresscritter from Appalachia that you won’t recruit a hillbilly to run against them.
That’s why Scott Brown said no – he wanted Schumer to clear the field if Chuck was true to his word, and Chuck wasn’t going to do that – Chuck was in charge of winning Senate seats for the Democratic Party…
>>In what universe does Chuck Schumer think this makes him look good
in the universe where campaign contributions come from. He has no reason to care what you or I think.
Is there evidence for this claim:
We know that it was Harry Reid that begged her to chair the TARP oversight panel. And liberals and consumer rights advocates that supported her appointment to the CFPB and then the Senate when she was stiffed for the head of the agency was her brainchild. Somehow doubt that Schumer had much to do with her success other than directing some DSCC money her way when not to do so would have been too revealing.
If Schumer tells an exagerated story while a tree falls in the woods, does the story still make sense?
I’m in Massachusetts. I guarandamntee that it took more than Uncle Schumer to get EW to run. It probably took more BECAUSE he wanted her to run. The local D establishment ran around getting $$, letters, petitions and other such paraphrenalia to get her to enter the race. And that was in Worcestor. I can only imagine what Mumbles’ organization in Boston did!
Not a charity and wouldn’t even have factored into this diary, if not for its attempt to hijack a bit of Holiday good cheer and moola.
So far so good. Then a nice hook:
Oh, goodie. We love deals. What could it be? A $99.99 i-pad? Uh, not exactly:
wtf?
Because everybody knows that what kids are thinking of this time of year aren’t cool new toys but taxes on income and property that they may have a couple of decades from now.
Then for the wafflers that might be listening to their kids:
Gee, and parents don’t already know that bit of useless information?
Given a choice between buying toys made in Asian sweatshops or donating to Scott Walker, ask a kid to get the better answer.
More Schumers and less Warrens please. We are the party of the educated elite in the major population centers. We share their cosmopolitan social values and their economic values now. These are linked.
Populists, racists, and sexists can join the evil on the right. All three are equally vile.
YAWN!!
that’s much more polite than anything I can imagine saying in response.
You’re slipping, man; you used to at least sound plausible on first glance.
but there might be some newbies to be conned, why not try
Trolls get frustrated when they begin failing to get any positive reinforcement. Frustration shuts down their cunning language and that shuts down the positive reinforcement they seek.
Well, now we know Howie Klein’s outraged diatribes at Down with Tyranny like this one from today are simple truth; Israel in the House and Schumer in the Senate are just not interested in Democrats winning. I always hoped he was exaggerating. Sigh.
Why on earth can’t such a progressive state primary this jerk out of the senate?
He’s against reinstating glass-steagall.
His top priority is the neocon apartheid regime of Israel.
He’s the biggest single enemy of the free internet.
He’s a big-mouthed, egotistical, deeply corrupt liar.
After the deBlasio landslide, Schumer should be packing his bags and getting ready to take the cushy lobbying job he’s spent his career screwing us to have waiting for him.
Because he’s a god at fundraising, and in leadership, and would kneecap any chance of doing so. Plus…he’s popular in his state.
Of course because he raises it all on Wall Street. He’s only popular, like DiFi, because the TradMed doesn’t report on his corruption.