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Dean to dole out $8M to Senate election effort

BY GLENN THRUSH | Newsday Washington Bureau

October 13, 2006

WASHINGTON - After weeks of backroom wrangling, Sen. Charles Schumer has convinced Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to rush about $8 million to Democratic Senate campaigns, Newsday has learned.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), head of the Democrats' effort to take back the House, has clashed with Dean publicly and is still trying to wrench free more money from Dean.

"We've come to a very felicitous, happy agreement with the DNC," said Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Under the deal finalized last week, the DNC will kick in $5 million to hotly contested Senate races in New Jersey, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri. Another $2 million to $3 million will go to get-out-the-vote operations in black and Hispanic neighborhoods, said Dean spokeswoman Karen Finney.

The new money is on top of about $12 million Dean previously pledged for election-related activities, Finney said. By Election Day, the DNC will have spent between $20 and $25 million in races, she added.

Dean has angered many Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), by focusing on long-term party-building - dubbed the 50-State Strategy - at the expense of the midterm elections. While Emanuel and Schumer have kept pace or bested their GOP counterparts at the congressional re-election committees, Dean has lagged millions behind Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

Democrats need to pick up six seats to win the Senate and 15 to take back the House.