What in the Hell?

[babylonsister]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/12/3/135333/885

What in the Hell?

by BooMan
Tue Dec 3rd, 2013 at 01:53:33 PM EST


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.

[LittleBlue]

1. Schumer in "look at me" shocker

That's a great story, Chuck. Why not tell it in private?

[mercuryblues]

2. this is

why we can't have nice things.

[meegbear]

13. +1

[Purveyor]

4. Ha. Lil chucky would be ppr'd from DU if caught pulling that stunt... eom

[shraby]

5. Are some of the older congressmen getting a tad senile and it's flying under

the radar?

[hootinholler]

10. No. It's a Senate tradition

Goes Way back.

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. If people had any idea...

But then, we can say that about so many things, and in the past they have utterly shocked me by meekly accepting things that I was sure would never be tolerated.

[TwilightGardener]

6. That's some awesome strategery right there, Charles. One vote for a six-year Senate term's

worth of future votes. Yeah...good stuff.

[Mass]

7. Schumer knows he was not head of the DSCC for 2012, I hope. (Patty Murray was)

(and frankly, she was drafted long before this happened).

This is exactly why I dislike Schumer. Always ready to sell people for political gain.

[Mass]

8. Can we get a true progressive to primary Schumer?\nt

[Lugnut]

9. Aren't we just full of ourselves, Chuck?

[GeorgeGist]

11. They don't call him ...

Chuck the Schmuck for nothin.

[madokie]

14. IIRC

schumer is who gave us rupert murdock. One of those 3 am sneaky deals where he inserted into an early vote on a bill language giving murdock citizenship status so he could create fox noise.
I used to have a link to this but the last computer crash I lost it. I'm sure it still can be found if anyone wants to do a search.

[KamaAina]

17. I can't find anything

that does sound like the kind of thing Murdreck would do rather than take some test like the little people.

However he became a citizen, the purpose was to be able to buy U.S. TV stations rather than to create a cable network. Fux happened a decade later. God Bless America!

[ellennelle]

15. oh good grief

i love me some booman, but this is a little myopic, imho. actually, more like blinkered myopia.

first of all, i was here in MA when scott brown was elected. i swallowed hard (gag) and campaigned for coakley, knowing full well she just sucks. and she did. still does (god help us, she canNOT run for guv).

that said, it was also very clear at that time that brown had quite a tailwind going for him, and at that time it looked like truly heavy lifting to just find someone to run against him.

just think a minute about what that 'one vote' would have meant, though. the disclose act was not just naming some post office in podunk; it was about forcing donors to disclose their campaign contributions. do you guys not see how crucial that single wee li'l vote actually was?? especially when set against the apparently mountainous climb to overcome brown's popularity here?? i mean, the implications for the koch's and rove and alec alone are mind-boggling - which is why they fought it so hard. it's a law that has to pass at some point in order for money in elections to get diluted enough for them to be, you know, fair. not to mention the fact that a republican senator from MA has to be very careful and circumspect about his votes if he wants to be reelected, as brown discovered. schumer knew this, as well, and recognized that, in the scheme of senate things, having one republican senator from MA was not like it would be from say AR or NC, where so much of that dark money pays off so darkly.

i sure appreciate party purists and all that, but grown ups have to actually deal with, you know, reality. weighing the pros and the cons, the risks and the outcomes, and recognizing the scope of each component of a decision. you know; real decision making? not just katie bar the door, nothing gets thru but puristas!! i mean, isn't that one of the many things we hated about bush??

ferchrissake, folks, i mean, really. there has to be compromise in politics as much as in governing, as we noted with the shutdown. did you not learn anything?? compromise has to happen between the ears as much as between players, too. and as an exercise to prove my point, survey your day and list the numbers of times you avoided a compromise for the purist reasons. ah, and don't forget all the killer gas you burned driving your car, and the coal you burned using electricity, and the underpaid workers you exploited consuming the meats and veggies and fast foods and junk foods. need i go on?

i mean, c'mon people; give me a frikkin' break. i'm no huge slobbering fan of schumer, but at least he made good - and in a big way - on his deal. in fact, i'd call it pretty much a FU smackdown of pretty boy brown; good on 'im.

[freshwest]

20. Agreed. The world of sausage making is not for the squeamish. Long term gains aren't easy.

Ignoring the blight of Citizens United for ideological purity is childish.

[Enthusiast]

16. Chuck Schumer is dead to me..........nt

[LordGlenconner]

18. What an asshole

[spanone]

19. i think the number of politicians that are NOT sleaze balls is in the .05 range

and that might be too kind