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Keeper of the coffer

Schumer uses rigid tactics as head of campaign committee to rake in funds for Senate Democrats

BY GLENN THRUSH | WASHINGTON BUREAU

November 13, 2005

WASHINGTON - There's a certain breed of high-minded Democrat who regards squeezing campaign contributions out of the reluctant rich as disdainful.

And then there's Chuck Schumer.

"The important thing you need to know about Chuck is that when it comes to fundraising, he's essentially a force of nature," said Tom Downey, a Long Island congressman-turned-lobbyist who has been Schumer's friend since the 1970s.

Like a father frowning at an A-minus on an otherwise perfect report card, good is never quite good enough to Schumer when it comes to increasing the cash flow to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which he has chaired for a year.

"You meet his goals, then he calls up the guys you've raised money from and raises more from them directly," Downey added. "And then he says, 'Tom, go find me some new people.'"

By all accounts, that relentlessness is serving Schumer well as the campaign chairman, where he will quarterback the 2006 effort to attack the GOP's 55-45 advantage in the Senate. He's no Tom DeLay, but the role seems to be bringing out the Boss Chuck in Schumer, the son of an exterminator.

The senator has replaced virtually every staff member hired by his predecessor, Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), terminated consultants favored by deposed Minority Leader Tom Daschle, and demanded the right to review hirings made by committee-backed candidates.

He also informed "safe" incumbents such as Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) not to expect a penny from the committee in 2006.

"If we had 58 seats, OK, we could be nice," said Schumer from his D.C. office last week. "We got our backs against the wall. This ain't beanbag."

Schumer has targeted a half-dozen vulnerable GOP incumbents who have shown weakness in recent polls: Mike DeWine of Ohio, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Jim Talent of Missouri, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Conrad Burns of Montana, and, to a lesser extent, Jon Kyl of Arizona. The committee also believes Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) has a good shot at winning the seat vacated by retiring Majority Leader Bill Frist.

(Curiously, the committee is backing off Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), a close friend of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, even though an October Zogby poll showed Ensign in a statistical dead heat with his top Democratic challenger.)

"I think we can pick up three," Schumer said. "And there's an outside, outside, outside chance we could get the majority back."

Playing defense

Three might be enough. "If he gets to 48, 49, he'll have a lethal minority," said Michael Franc, vice president at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank. "It's probably best for him to get close and fall short. Who wants to spend the next two years governing?"

Still, Schumer is forced to spend a lot of time playing defense, protecting six endangered Democratic incumbents, while trying to keep the GOP from picking up vacated Democratic seats in New Jersey, Vermont, Minnesota and Maryland.

So far, fortune has been smiling on him: Almost every front-line GOP challenger has demurred from running.

Schumer also has made his own luck. In the first 10 months of 2005, he out-raised Senate Republican fundraising chief Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) by a $32-million-to-$28-million margin at a time when all other national GOP cash committees have been stomping their Democrat counterparts.

Schumer also has used his notorious penuriousness (one ex-staffer calls him the "cheapest man on earth") to hoard $19 million cash on hand, about twice what Dole has larded away, according to federal reports for October.

That has prompted some Republicans to lament picking Dole over Sen. Norman Coleman (R-Minn.), a cash-collecting dervish who graduated from Brooklyn's Madison High School, Schumer's alma mater.

"I have heard a lot of people comment on the contrast between Dole and Norm Coleman, about how Norm has really distinguished himself as a fundraiser," Franc said.