Wall street trader moves to challenge Schumer

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A Wall Street securities trader said Monday he is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Charles Schumer's bid for a second term next year.

Michael Benjamin, a son of immigrants, said he was relying, in part, on conservative concern about the political future of Schumer's more famous Democratic Senate colleague from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to help raise money for his own campaign.

"Electing a strong conservative Republican like me over him will set the foundation for defeating Hillary Clinton in 2006," Benjamin wrote in a fund-raising letter sent out nationally.

Clinton's name has proved an effective fund-raising tool among conservatives. She is considered a potential 2008 presidential contender and is up for re-election to the Senate in 2006.

Benjamin, 33, said he expected to face competition for the GOP nomination. Already, U.S. Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican, has said he is considering running for the Senate. Benjamin said he would not run if former New York City Rudolph Giuliani decided to seek the GOP nomination to challenge Schumer. Calling Giuliani "a great leader," Benjamin said, "He's somebody I would vote for." Benjamin said, however, that he thought it was doubtful Giuliani would seek to challenge Schumer's re-election bid. Giuliani has said he wants to get back into politics at some point, but he hasn't said what office he might want to run for.

While Benjamin sought to link Schumer to Clinton -- "It's no secret that Hillary Clinton's best friend in the U.S. Senate is my liberal opponent," Benjamin wrote -- his fund-raising letter also had plenty of criticism of Schumer. "Chuck Schumer is the leading Democratic senator on the Judiciary Committee to oppose President Bush's nominees for the federal bench," Benjamin wrote. Schumer has been one of the leaders in the battle to keep the Senate from voting on Bush's nomination of Michael Estrada to serve on a federal appeals court. New York Republicans have been seeking to use Schumer's opposition to Estrada, a native New Yorker, against him in the Hispanic community. "So if you're a conservative black, a conservative Hispanic, or just a plain old conservative American, you can kiss goodbye your chances of Chuck Schumer supporting you," Benjamin wrote. Benjamin identified himself in the letter as a "Hispanic Republican." His mother is from Honduras. His father was born in Iran. Benjamin ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1996, losing to Democratic incumbent Jerrold Nadler of Manhattan.

Unfortunately, neither Benjamin nor King has any chance of beating Schumer. But Benjamin sounds like a REAL Republican and therefore would motivate alot more turnout of the base than Schumer-clone Pete King would. King and his fellow RINOs might cause the whole slate to get wiped out on election election day. No Republican in the their right mind will support King in the primary.

The only thing is how do we get that jerk King out of the House? If he loses the general, he's gone for good. But if he loses the primary, he can just run back to his district and continue his back-stabbing record in congress. King needs a good primary challenge himself. What shall we do?

I'm not a single issue voter, although the only exception I might make is for the traitors in the GOP who defended Clinton during impeachment and saved his @$$. King is definitely on that list.

The funny thing about Peter King is that he's the only member of the Clinton Republicans who has an ACCEPTABLE voting record on most issues. Yes, he's stauchly pro-life and pro-soveignity, for instance. He's be considered a moderate conservative in most of the country, although in NY he's probably a "hard core right-winger" by the state's standards.

Aside from his right-of-center voting record, though, King can't be trusted. He's a back-stabbing, self-promoting arrogant jerk. This is the guy who went around smearing Bob Barr as example of someone who makes the party look like "bare foot revivalists" and who tried to help the Democrats slander Gingrich with false "ethic violations". He paraded around with some terrorists from the IRA and the last straw is when he lead the charge to defeat impeachment and slander his own party by claiming he was "threatened" if he didn't vote to impeach Slick.

Due to King being the last remaining "Republican" from long island, I think it's imperative that we replace this chameleon-like egomanic with a reliable, sane conservative in the next available primary.

As for Rudy. Yeah, I'd vote for him the primary if he ran against Schumer. I doubt he will, and I'd RATHER have him run against the much more evil HILLARY anyawy. The funny thing about Rudy is he's not even as conservative as King, but he's much more likeable and LOYAL to furthering the party than King will ever be. But until and unless Rudy announces, now is the time to start rallying around Benjamin so we can stop Peter King.

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