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Schumer hits bumps in new job
Politico ^ | March 11, 2011 | Manu Raju

Posted on 03/11/2011 4:35:31 AM PST by Second Amendment First

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer scored a major coup when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tapped him to resurrect his party’s struggling messaging operation and build a unified Democratic policy strategy.

But two months into his high-profile job, he’s running into an age-old problem: Democratic disunity.

Democrats are split over the size and scope of budget cuts for the next seven months — let alone the next two years. They’re dealing with a White House they believe has been disconnected — and venting about a lack of leadership from President Barack Obama. And when House Republicans were maneuvering on a short-term spending bill, even some fellow Democratic critics said their leadership’s response was off-key.

The frustration with the president is coming to a boil in the Democratic Caucus — that his above-the-fray style he’s projecting in the budget debate has hampered its ability to sell a consistent and clear message to the public. Several of his top advisers got that message at a tense lunch meeting Thursday, attendees said.

“This is a negotiation among ourselves,” Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said of the meeting, which included senior adviser David Plouffe, Office of Management and Budget Chief Jack Lew and economic adviser Gene Sperling. “I think it’s a positive thing to do, hearing the criticism that comes from some of our own members.”

A day after the White House appeared cool to Schumer’s idea of including more sweeping structural changes in the debate over this year’s spending bills, several Senate Democrats pushed the Obama advisers Thursday to be more receptive to that plan, sources said.

“The president needs to speak loudly and clearly about the direction of the country that we can’t do all the cuts on a narrow band of the budget,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who faces reelection for a second term next year. “We need the president to step in more.”

All told, the Democratic frustration adds up to a growing challenge for Schumer, who’s used to running a sharp message machine that outruns the competition.

Senate Democrats say they’re pleased by the initial steps Schumer has taken with the Democratic Policy and Communications Center, saying it has been aggressive and proactive and has gone to new lengths in helping explain to voters in individual states how bills affect them. On the budget, they’ve been quick to warn that Republican plans are out of the mainstream and would result in a government shutdown.

But Republicans say Schumer has run an erratic operation that’s veered badly off message — particularly when the party tries to communicate what it stands for on the budget.

Some Democrats seem to acknowledge that, especially since it’s Schumer who still has to answer to Reid.

One senior Democratic senator — speaking on condition of anonymity — summed up some of the problems this way: Schumer “has pretty much taken over as [Democratic] leader. But the problem is that Harry is the one out there speaking for us, and he’s not very good at it.”

Aides to both Schumer and Reid dismiss such contentions, saying that the men work effectively with one another and are still very close on a personal level. Last Thursday at 7 a.m., for instance, Schumer spoke with Reid on the phone, and they both decided to bring the House Republicans’ seven-month spending plan to the floor — a move that showed the GOP bill didn’t have support to pass the Senate.

So far, they say, the Democrats have had clear successes this Congress. They pushed through a modest series of rules changes to make the Senate operate more efficiently, passed long-stalled bills to overhaul patents and reform the Federal Aviation Administration — and have taken repeal of the health care law off the table by killing it early this Congress.

But they plainly acknowledge that the politically charged budget debate is the hardest to unify their caucus behind — given that it’s filled with moderates up for reelection who are seeking deeper cuts and liberals worried that slashing domestic programs would hurt the country’s most vulnerable at a time of economic malaise.

Alaska Sen. Mark Begich, a new member of the Democratic leadership, said “part” of the problem is the growing pains of the overhauled leadership structure that is contending with a new House majority.

“There’s a frustration that there hasn’t been enough discussion about what’s in this House bill — and the impacts on public safety, on education, on delivery of health systems in rural Alaska, for example,” Begich said.

In a speech Wednesday, Schumer called for the two parties to “reset” their budget talks to focus more on reforming entitlements and tax increases — rather than just the small piece of discretionary spending.

“Teams that are winning don’t call for a ‘reset,’” said Don Stewart, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spokesman.

Republicans like Nebraska Sen. Mike Johanns says the internal Democratic jostling has produced a message that has been “all over the map.”

“I don’t think there is a consistent message,” said Johanns, who wants to be the Senate Republicans’ message chief in the next Congress. “I think you have members who are running for reelection who voted for health care, voted for the stimulus, and they have to establish their conservativeness, if you will. I think Sen. Reid has had a very difficult time pulling his caucus together.”

Democrats were successful Wednesday in uniting their caucus against the House Republican plan, which would have shaved $61 billion off the budget, killing it on a 56-44 vote without any defections from their party. But Schumer and Reid lost 10 Democrats and one liberal independent when they tried to push forward their plan of a more modest series of cuts.

Schumer said the leadership wasn’t “twisting arms,” and Reid said it’s incumbent on Republicans to negotiate in good faith since they initially balked at a four-week continuing resolution, only to settle on a two-week plan in which government funding will run out March 18.

But it was how the initial two-week measure came together that raised some eyebrows on the Hill. After Reid unveiled a 30-day plan to keep the government funded at current levels, House Speaker John Boehner’s top staff told Reid officials they’d push for a two-week plan that would essentially be pro-rated from their broader, $61 billion cuts, looking to spread about $4 billion in cuts across various federal agencies, Democrats say.

Fearful that such cuts would be devastating, Reid and Schumer telephoned every moderate senator up for reelection and won a commitment they’d oppose such a plan, ultimately leading Reid spokesman Jon Summers to call the plan “reckless” and “extreme.”

Democrats then leaked to the press that they were reviewing cuts to earmarks and programs that Obama has already targeted. The day after that, Republicans proposed a $4 billion, two-week plan that would essentially do just that — and Democratic leaders said they’d accept such an idea.

It made Democrats look like they were flip-flopping after drawing a line in the sand. And a House Republican aide — who disputes the Democratic account by saying that the House GOP never made such a commitment to them behind closed doors — said the Senate Democrats are now trying to “explain away their embarrassing mistake.”

Nevertheless, some Democrats concede they responded in an erratic fashion.

“It wasn’t our best week,” one Democrat said.

Even behind closed doors, though, Democrats are split about the need for producing a longer-term plan themselves — or whether they should wait for the White House, since Obama could undercut whatever plan they propose.

“I think the administration at very high levels has heard from a bunch of us that governors lead on deficit reduction in their states, mayors lead in their cities, county executives lead many times, but the presidents need to lead for their country,” said one moderate Democratic senator. “We realize that here are many distractions and burdens on this president, but this is one that cries out for leadership.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:
The rats are getting fed up with the president who votes "present". Leadership? No he can't!

The frustration with the president is coming to a boil in the Democratic Caucus — that his above-the-fray style he’s projecting in the budget debate has hampered its ability to sell a consistent and clear message to the public. Several of his top advisers got that message at a tense lunch meeting Thursday, attendees said.

*

“The president needs to speak loudly and clearly about the direction of the country that we can’t do all the cuts on a narrow band of the budget,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who faces reelection for a second term next year. “We need the president to step in more.”

1 posted on 03/11/2011 4:35:32 AM PST by Second Amendment First
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To: Second Amendment First

If one’s friends do not see you as a leader you might not be a leader.


2 posted on 03/11/2011 4:40:19 AM PST by vicar7
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To: Second Amendment First

They still don’t get it. There’s very few Americans who’ll forget their antics during the HealthCare Bill scam. They were supposed to represent us and not Obama, Pelosi, Reid, lobbyists and while we were begging to be heard they totally ignored us and made their deals behind closed doors. They’re going to get a resounding message come 2012 and there’s nothing they can do to reinvent themselves to prevent that from happening. There’s not one leader among them.


3 posted on 03/11/2011 4:50:37 AM PST by bronxville
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To: Second Amendment First

They need not worry now that Schumer is at the helm of this.
Proceed. /s


4 posted on 03/11/2011 5:33:28 AM PST by bill1952 (Choice is an illusion created between those with power - and those without)
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To: Second Amendment First

I would love to have heard Schumer’s coments when Reid went on the Senate floor to talk about “cowboy poetry.”


5 posted on 03/11/2011 5:34:31 AM PST by ken5050 (Admin Moderators rule!!!!)
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To: Second Amendment First

——We need the president to step in more.” ——

“When you are up your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember you mission is to drain the swamp.”

The Messiah is not rising to the level of savior because he is unable to think well enough to respond to all the current serious problems


6 posted on 03/11/2011 6:10:27 AM PST by bert (K.E. N.P. N.C. D.E. +12 ....( History is a process, not an event ))
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To: Second Amendment First

Schumer deserves all the problems he gets. And more.

He is among the most revolting of Democrat senators. Why New Yorkers continue to send him to the Senate is perplexing.


7 posted on 03/11/2011 6:22:26 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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