Washington – Schumer On The Verge Of Becoming Next Majority Leader

Washington – As the midterm elections approached in 1994, Chuck Schumer, then 43 and a representative from New York for 13 years, was granted a one-on-one meeting with Speaker of the House Tom Foley — unusual for someone still regarded, in Hill culture, as quite junior.

“Chuck said, ‘I’m concerned about the November elections,’ ” recalls Jim Kessler, who was in the room as Schumer’s legislative director. “He said to Foley, ‘I’m afraid we could lose the House, and I’m even concerned about your seat.’ ”

Foley dismissed Schumer’s concerns, swatted him on the knee with a rolled-up newsweekly, said, “I’m not worried about my seat, and I’m not worried about the Dems,” and walked out.

Schumer turned to his aide. “I think we’re in real trouble,” he said.

That November, in what came to be known as the Republican revolution, the GOP swept the House. Foley became the first Speaker to lose his seat since the Civil War.

The strategic boldness of this move — enshrining Schumer, after the fact, as a lone prophet brashly breaking protocol for the greater good — epitomizes the way his mind works: faster than most, insatiably interested in the new and the next, several leaps ahead of the smartest people in the room. Staffers who spoke with The Post say they have no idea when Schumer sleeps; he’ll come home from events at 11 p.m. and sit with a bowl of corn flakes and a sheaf of reading material. (Schumer, who rarely drinks, “abuses corn flakes,” says an ex-aide, laughing). He also leaves on Fridays with five or six hours worth of work-related reading, which he plows through every Sunday afternoon.

When, in the mid-’90s, Schumer was bored with serving in the House and mulling his next step, he approached his best two options — run for senate or for governor — through one prism only, says a former confidant. “If he ran for governor, the primary would’ve been clear, but he would’ve had a tough race against Pataki,” the source says. “The Senate was a tougher primary [against Geraldine Ferraro and Mark Green] but not as tough a general against D’Amato.”

Senate it was.

Once elected, the next challenge was how to elevate his profile and distinguish himself in the swiftest way possible. Schumer came up with the idea of holding press conferences every Sunday — a day of the week he knew was typically slow for news organizations in need of content.

“We would have to come up with Sunday press conference ideas six months in advance,” says a former key staffer. “They needed to be something a reporter could write about without having to reach a whole bunch of people, because that’s hard on a Sunday. We’d have to give them stats and quotes from other people and a letter from a government official that showed some sort of action” — basically, a pre-packaged story that could be filed with a minimum of effort. “So they were typically consumer ideas — the price of energy or cable TV, but they were designed to help drive another part of the agenda.”

This is what Schumer has always been gifted at: identifying a need no one quite realized existed, preparing with micro-fine attention to detail, and positing himself as the solution.

This careful planning, the strategic thinking, the press seduction, the corn flakes, have all led to this: If the Democrats manage to hold on to the Senate, but Harry Reid — who faces a stiff challenge in Nevada — is ousted, Chuck Schumer will be well-positioned to be Senate majority leader. And that, among other things, would make him the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in American history.

Chuck Schumer has never lost an election. Before beating Republican incumbent Al D’Amato in the 1998 Senate race (by a healthy 10-point margin), he served in the House for 18 years. For decades, he thought his trajectory limited.

“I actually heard him say he could never be president,” says a former longtime staffer. “He said, ‘I’m a Jewish guy with rough edges from Brooklyn.’ ”

As the political and social landscape has changed, it seems he has reconsidered, reportedly telling one aide that all he needed to do was “figure out Iowa.” A White House senior administration official recently told The Washington Post that, as of November, Chuck Schumer would be the next majority leader.

Schumer, often mocked for spending lots of time behind banks of microphones, has said nothing.

Complicating matters: Not only are Reid and Schumer exceptionally close, but Schumer owes his swift rise in the Senate to Reid. Frustrated and feeling stagnant, in 2004 Schumer makes it known that he’s considering running for governor of New York in the ’06 election. Reid, meanwhile, is running for Senate majority leader. He calls and asks Schumer for his vote. Schumer, says another ex-staffer, tells Reid, “I want to be finance chair.”

Reid, according to this source, replies, “I will do that for you. Stay. I want to bring you up in the leadership; you’re essential to regaining the House and the Senate.”

“Chuck owes his rise to Harry,” says one former aide, who remains close to Schumer. “The exponential curve of his influence and power is because of his proximity to Harry.”

Reid, however, has precipitously lost political stock, currently holding a 1.5% lead over Republican challenger Sharron Angle, who is so far to the right she has called for abolishing Social Security and is opposed to abortion in cases of rape and incest.

“Reid might be in trouble,” concedes another ex-Schumer aide. “And who wouldn’t want to be in the position to be majority leader? Chuck’s family life is different now; his kids are all grown.”

Though Schumer has been serving as Reid’s “horse-whisperer,” as one source put it, he doesn’t often offer support through tangible means, such as fundraising. (He will be attending a fundraiser Mayor Bloomberg is throwing for Reid in September, however.). Schumer’s support for Reid, says every former staffer who spoke to The Post, is genuine, which is nice, but there’s nothing gravitational about it. “He’s not a big worker ‘for,’ ” says one ex-staffer. “He doesn’t have a machine that he leverages. That’s not what he does.” It’s also hard to discern what he does do: “You can’t really tell,” says this source. “He doesn’t put his fingers on the scales.”

For example: When it comes to his hand-picked junior senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Schumer is a street thug, having knocked any and all challengers out of her way in order to maintain his control of two votes in the Senate. (He reportedly had the White House ask former House Rep. Harold Ford Jr., considering a challenge to Gillibrand in the primary, to kindly step aside.) When it came to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, then-junior senator from New York, Schumer led her and her staff to believe he was working for her: “He didn’t want to look bad,” says a former aide. “It was part of the calculus.” Hillaryland was shocked to learn, in the post-election book “Game Change,” that Schumer had been secretly mobilizing Senate support for Barack Obama all along.

Of the former staffers and current friends who spoke with The Post, none thinks that Schumer actually hopes Reid will lose. But that doesn’t mean he’s not been planning for it. Just in case.

“People on the Hill like Chuck,” says an ex-staffer who worked closely with Schumer for eight years. “They find him very real. He’s not a guy who holds grudges; he doesn’t have a long memory. He’s worked with a lot of people he’s disagreed with.”

From his first days on the floor, Schumer went about courting his new colleagues. “He made sure he had dinner with folks; a lot of his stature is a result of creating personal relationships within the Senate,” says another ex-staffer. His friendships and alliances aren’t disingenuous: “What you see,” says this source, “is what you get.”

Still, those who know Schumer best say that despite his vaulting ambition, he’s not nearly as Machiavellian as state Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver — even though the two seem outwardly similar. “I don’t know that there’s as much chess-playing as Shelly,” says a former staffer. “Shelly’s like, ‘I’m going to sit back and let you make the mistake.’ Chuck’s like, ‘I’m gonna find my lane and barrel through.’ You pretty much know where you stand with Chuck.”

Should Reid lose, Schumer’s only other competition for Speaker is Dick Durbin, another close friend (Schumer and Durbin room together in the same DC townhouse). Durbin, says everyone who spoke to The Post, is inarguably the more popular member on the Hill. “Durbin has a gentler personality; he’s better liked,” says a former staffer. “But in a fight? I’d put my money on Chuck.”

So, what would a Schumer-led Senate look like? Cosmetically, at least, it would function much more smoothly than under Reid. “Reid is a master of the inside game, but he’s a disaster media-wise,” says a former Schumer aide. “Chuck’s a master of the outside game. He’s a skilled media guy. Who do I want on ‘Meet the Press’? Chuck.”

Schumer is also unique in his prestige and popularity — a different brand than Durbin’s but no less potent. As a recent, devastating portrait of a deeply fractured Senate in The New Yorker attests, legislators such as Schumer are a rarity. If the Republicans gain control of the House — which, at the moment, seems inevitable — Schumer may find himself massaging the image of what’s perceived to have been an untrammeled legislature. Most likely to benefit, though: New Yorkers.

“His key to safety and success is to take care of New York, first and foremost,” says a former high-ranking aide. “He enjoys safety. And the best way to manage risk long-term is to always do what’s best for New York. That always works out for him.”