Chimichanga Chuck, as he has become known to the South American vendors whose Red Hook food stands he helped save from a Health Department shutdown, is running late to the press conference celebrating their re-opening.

The day is hot, the sun beating down on the people wrapped around the corner of Bay Street and Clinton in line for pupusas and grilled cactus leaves. When he finally does arrive, the crowd thickens with people eager to shake his hand or say something to him before he gets to the podium.

To the mother trying to walk back from the public pool across the street, this is infuriating—until she sees the cause of the commotion.
She looks down at her son. He does not seem interested.

“He’s a senator, he’s one of a hundred senators,” she says, nudging the boy.

The boy looks on, unfazed. She waits for a moment, watching the crowd herself. Then she exhales, takes the boy by the hand, and leads him away.

                                                   

“You’ve now seen Chuck Schumer,” she says. “Now you’ve really lived.”

At this point, is there anyone who has not seen Chuck Schumer? New York’s senior senator has made an art form out of making himself known, first in the Assembly, then in the House and Senate.

By now, he is a national figure, one of the handful of celebrity senators who have avoided being marooned on C-SPAN. Turn on the Sunday morning talk shows and he is often there, talking about Democratic prospects, the Supreme Court, the banking industry.

But turn on the local news and he is always there.

Schumer has been instrumental in framing the energy crisis in terms of its effect on home heating oil prices or getting more of the federal budget allocated to transportation funding so that New York has money to improve its rail links, said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan).

“Chuck can fit a local agenda into the national policy,” Silver said. “He’s been able to synthesize the two better than anyone else who’s come along.”

As a way of understanding the difference between New York’s current senators, Silver cited the contrast between Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D) and Alfonse D’Amato (R).

“I don’t want to downplay the role that Hillary Clinton has, but New York has traditionally had a local senator and a national senator,” he said. “What Chuck has done is remarkable in terms of calling attention to issues, most of which are national, but have a local effect.”
But Schumer said he has overcome this dichotomy.

“When I ran in 1998, here’s what I said: ‘There’s the person who’s the great thinker, Moynihan and there’s the person who fills the potholes, D’Amato. Senators can do both.’ The guy I admired was actually a Republican, Jacob Javits, who was known for doing both,” Schumer said. “That’s my role.”

That is one of several roles, actually. As vice chair of the Democratic caucus, he helps craft policy for his party. As chair of the Joint Economic Committee, he heads what is essentially an internal think-tank for the House and Senate on economic policy, an issue that grows more important daily. And as the chair once again of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), he seems set to lead his party’s candidates into big wins for the second cycle in a row. On policy, on economics, on politics, Schumer is setting the national agenda, and using this power to get things done for New York and New Yorkers. There is little in Congress that is beyond his ability to affect, few in Washington who do not take his call. And aside from Barack Obama, there is perhaps no one Democrats are counting on and talking about more.

For Chuck Schumer, this may be as good as it gets.



Every time Schumer talks about a race he wants to win, he knocks on the nearest table, wood or not. Obama winning the White House, knock on the table. His former staffer Dan Squadron becoming a state senator, knock on the table.

But when he talks about expanding the Democratic majority in the Senate, his hands stay still. For the head of the DSCC, the question is not whether the Democrats will pick up seats. The question is how many.

A few weeks ago, Schumer floated an idea that dropped like a bomb in Washington: The Democrats, he said, might pick up enough seats to increase their majority to 60, a nine-seat pick-up. This would be a radical shift, larger than the 1994 Republican Revolution both in the number of new senators (they had eight, though two more switched parties after the election) and the number of total seats (by the time the dust settled, they had 53).

But more importantly, winning 60 seats would also eliminate the possibility of filibustering, the protection in Senate rules which enables the minority party to prevent votes by keeping debate open, and which Republicans have used almost 100 times during the two years since the Democrats took the majority. With 60 senators, Democrats could push through their agenda essentially unimpeded. They would not even have to budge on amendments or procedural questions.

Getting 60 seats, he said, is “unlikely, but possible.”

But he is optimistic.

“Just to give perspective, if you were to ask me two years ago at this time, ‘Could we take back the Senate?’ I would have said: ‘Possible, but unlikely.’ Virginia had not unfolded. Missouri looked a lot harder than it was. It wasn’t clear we were going to win Rhode Island and Ohio,” he said. “So the wind is at our back.”

The Republicans seem to agree. A week after Schumer initially made his 60-seat prediction, Nevada Sen. John Ensign, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, released a letter to donors repeating his intent to match advertising spending by the DSCC, but pleading with his colleagues to help provide him with the money to do so. The Republicans have $24.6 million in the bank, while the Democrats, thanks in large part to Schumer’s relentless fundraising, have $45 million. And counting.

Schumer downplayed the importance of the money. On the contrary, he argued, the most important thing he has done at the DSCC is focus on recruiting.

He takes credit for the candidacies of Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey to run in 2006, and helping all three beat incumbents in important swing state pick-ups. This year, he says, he convinced four more potential swing state winners to run: New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen, Virginia’s Mark Warner, New Mexico’s Tom Udall and Colorado’s Mark Udall. All are well ahead in their races.

That will pay dividends for years to come, said Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska senator who led the DSCC for consecutive cycles in 1996 and 1998.

“Chuck helped a lot of people who have been successful, and he will be helping a lot more people who become successful,” he said. “Because of what he’s done, because of his performance, he will come out of this with a lot more friends who are grateful to him, who will want to help him. And that’s going to be hugely beneficial to him and to New York.”

Already, Schumer and his legislative agenda have been reaping the benefits.

Most of the attention around the Housing Relief Bill, which passed the Senate in late July with President George W. Bush’s blessing, went to the federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Schumer supported government relief for the failing mortgage giants, and with his seats on the Banking and Finance committees, helped shape the final agreement. But he also used the bill as an opportunity to tend to a specifically New York issue: protecting affordable housing at Starrett City, the massive complex of buildings in East Brooklyn which went on the market in 2006. With the support of his colleagues, he inserted language locking in Section 8 vouchers for the buildings until 2028, effectively securing the long-term financing necessary to keep the apartments rent-subsidized and affordable.

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-Brooklyn), who represents the area including Starrett City and collaborated on the legislation, said this was just the latest instance in what has become a running theme for the state’s congressional delegation over the past two years.

“We were able to arrange for [Starrett tenants] to be protected for the next 20 years only because of the fact that he has clout, that he was able to use that clout to do things on behalf of our city and state,” Towns said.

Most senators in Washington have never heard of Starrett City, been anywhere near its 46 buildings or knew much about the saga of Clipper Equity’s attempts to close the $1.3 billion deal for the development.

But, Schumer said, he had no trouble getting them to defer to him.

“They have respect for you and they like you and they know you can be helpful,” Schumer explained, “so they say, ‘Why not?’”
Though Schumer considered running for governor twice, first in 1998 and then again in 2006, he now says the only part of the job which really appealed to him was the ability to have a larger hand in economic development. Instead, he has attempted to seize that power through his bully pulpit, which he eagerly uses to balance media coverage he thinks is all too often tilted toward opponents of big new projects.
“New York cannot become a city that doesn’t grow because every time we propose something grand, a small group says no and they seem to have undue clout,” he explained. 

He is also trying to set the agenda, watching for stalled initiatives that he can get moving again.

“Moynihan taught me one thing: You have to think grand. When it comes to public works and growth and transportation, I do try to encourage that,” he said. “I try to be a force against inertia.”

In May, he tried to spur movement on the namesake project of the man who had taught him this lesson, proposing that the Port Authority take over the transformation of the Farley Post Office into Moynihan Station.

The timing hardly seemed accidental. David Paterson (D) was less than 100 days into his unexpected term as governor, and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli (D) and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) had been statewide officials only slightly longer. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) was still off on the presidential campaign trail. Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Ind.), his defeat on congestion pricing still fresh, had only a year and half left in his term.

Schumer seemed to sense a growing power vacuum in New York and elbowed his way right into the void.

In general, Schumer is not a man who spends much time in self-reflection.

He is an operator, working down a constantly expanding to-do list over 18-hour days. He does not carry a Blackberry, but almost always has a cell phone pressed to his ear, making fundraising calls, advising candidates, and weighing in on policy decisions.

Things have gotten increasingly busy since November 2006. Democrats ecstatic over his success in returning them to the majority asked him to chair the DSCC again, and, eager to give him another prize, created a new position for him. He is now vice chair of the Democratic caucus, the party’s third-ranking job.

Just about everyone is expecting him to do well for himself after another good November this year.

“I think all things are possible when it comes to Chuck Schumer,” said D’Amato, who lost his Senate seat to Schumer in 1998. “It all depends on where he wants to go and the opportunities that might be there for him.”

The opportunities for advancement, however, do not abound.

Ever since late 2004, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put him on the powerful Finance Committee as part of the effort to woo him into staying in the Senate and chairing the DSCC, Schumer has had all the committee assignments he wanted. On Finance, he holds sway over tax policy, discretionary spending of public money and trade agreements, among other things. On the Banking Committee, he oversees the nation’s financial institutions, commodity price controls and urban development. On Judiciary, he has become a key member of the team which vets Supreme Court nominees and an active force on civil liberties laws.

Already, this is quite a portfolio for a man who has spent only a decade in the Senate, where seniority usually defines all.

Schumer said he is satisfied with his committee assignments. As to which chairmanship he might want most, he said his opinion hardly matters.
“There’s a seniority system,” Schumer said, “and it works pretty rigidly.”

Under that system, he is number eight on Finance, number four on Banking and number seven on Judiciary. Though at 58, Schumer is relatively young for a second-term senator, there are several senators in front of him on each committee who are far from retirement age themselves.

Nor is there much further to climb in the leadership. The Democratic whip, Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin is a friend (and roommate in a Capitol Hill row house owned by California Rep. George Miller), and Schumer seems more at home helping set policy in his current position than making counting votes his prime concern.

Reid has announced plans to run for another term in 2010, and Schumer has made very clear that he would not run against a man he helped make leader in the first place.

“We are compadres,” Schumer said.

But speculation has long lingered in Washington that Reid might soon give up being majority leader. If he does, Schumer seems well-positioned to run for the job: In an internal race that would likely take at most 30 votes to win, Schumer could have a base of up to 15 senators who owe their seats in part to his efforts at the DSCC, and a host more grateful to him for putting them in the majority.

Harold Ickes, the New York-native Democratic political consultant who has advised a long list of senators nursing higher ambitions, said he believes this is the most likely eventuality for Schumer, and predicted that Schumer could thrive as majority leader if he gets the job.

“Given Senator Schumer’s ability and drive, you could see him at some point leading the Senate, but that is something that is a ways off,” Ickes said. “You look back at other majority leaders, including Lyndon Johnson—Johnson was a hard-driving, very focused leader who understood his members. I think Chuck Schumer certainly has many of those attributes.”

Schumer shrugged off questions on the topic, except to say that he hopes Reid will stay and that he will not challenge his leader. But this might be risky: The longer Schumer waits to run for majority leader, the more time other players will have to rack up newer favors.

There may be other obstacles, as well. Becoming the Democratic leader has also been discussed as an option for Clinton, now that she has returned to the Senate. If there is a movement to put Clinton in the post, few expect Schumer would try to outmaneuver her. 

Schumer’s name gets tossed around in discussions about the next Treasury secretary and other cabinet positions which might be available if Obama wins the White House. Schumer dismissed this. And a diplomatic appointment to the Court of Saint James just does not seem to suit him.

He could, of course, run for president, though as prodigious a fundraiser and accomplished a legislator as Schumer is, the country may not be ready to put a hard-charging Brooklynite in the Oval Office.

Ickes, who took over Clinton’s presidential campaign in its final months and had previously been a key advisor to her husband’s 1992 run, gave a diplomatic assessment, noting that most important to running is desperately wanting the job. Schumer has made no indication he does.

“There’s a lot of different attributes that go into making a good presidential candidate,” Ickes said. “Chuck Schumer certainly has some of them.”

Schumer insisted this is not how he thinks about his political career. He spent 18 years in the House, and would have stayed there, he said, if not for chafing at being in the minority.

Part of his political strategy is to always try to appear cheery. But his own personal philosophy is deeply pragmatic.

“You take life as it comes. Underneath it all, I have sort of a—fatalistic is the wrong word—but whatever is going to happen is going to happen, and you make the best of it,” he said. “That’s my attitude about things.”

What has happened so far has been pretty good. Schumer has never lost an election himself, and only one of his competitive candidates lost in 2006. Democrats made the rare move to reappoint him as the head of the DSCC, a job that seems perfectly suited to his unmatched fundraising skills and his ability to draw the links between political outcomes, policy decisions and the differences these make in voters’ lives (though some Republicans have argued that he does this a little too fluidly, criticizing him for having arguments in committee hearings which almost immediately become grist for fundraising appeals).  A master campaigner, he has, apparently, found being a campaign mastermind a perfect fit.

At this rate, Democrats may want him to stay as DSCC chair forever. Schumer is non-committal.

“Maybe they won’t want me after November 4th,” he said. “So let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. A, I’m up for re-election in 2010. B, I love legislating. And the ability to get things done on a major legislative field, particularly in 2009, when God willing”—knock on the table—“we have a Democratic president is tremendously exciting to me. I’m not going to say anything yet.”

Schumer talks excitedly about what could happen after what may be a generational election, one where what he calls “the big tectonic plates” of government move. He is eager to be involved in a major reshaping of education, energy, immigration and health care policy in a world redefined by technology and globalization.

For now, every race is a potential win, every idea for a bill a potential law. There has not been time for anything to go wrong or for the political tide to turn—which might happen sooner rather than later if Democrats do achieve one-party control of Washington. And one of these cycles, Schumer will have to turn the DSCC reins over to someone else.

He could become an elder statesman, a local kingmaker and eventually, perhaps, a committee chair. Majority leader is a possibility. But with his options limited within the Senate and beyond, Schumer, a man who clearly thrives on attention, may never have a more prominent moment than this.

Not that he is expecting to slow down.

He laid out a battle plan for this year’s elections in his 2007 book, Positively American. Whatever happens in this year’s elections, he suspects he will have his hands more than full trying to keep Democrats focused on its principles. He believes his platform was key to winning the majority in the first place, and sticking to it will be key to staying in power in the years ahead.

“The good news about my book,” he said, pausing to point out that an updated version is now available in paperback, “is that Newt Gingrich said, ‘If the Democrats follow Schumer’s book, they’ll be the majority party for 25 years.’ The bad news is that they’re not following it, but they’re moving that way.”

But he does not expect to write a sequel.

“I don’t know,” Schumer said, “if I’ll have time.”