DSCC's Chuck Schumer is staying neutral on the N.C. Senate race - NOT

by: Pam Spaulding

Wed Mar 19, 2008 at 20:30:00 PM EDT

Boy that was fast. Senator Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), which has been less-than-candid about its role in elevating NC State Senator Kay Hagan as its favored candidate over Jim Neal for the Dem nomination in the U.S. Senate race here in the Tar Heel state, once again, this time in The Hill, let his slip show.

(via Howie Klein)

Nothing has served Schumer quite as well in his campaign role as his pragmatism and heavy hand.

Though irritating to certain parts of the party, Schumer has consistently picked his horses early, largely based on their electability, and rode them through to the finish line.

In 2006, it was now-Sens. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.). This cycle, it's candidates like businessman Bruce Lunsford in Kentucky, state Rep. Jeff Merkley in Oregon and state Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina, who all face primaries.

The chronology of events is below the fold.

You might recall that the DSCC couldn't even manage to put Jim Neal on its web site as Liddy's challenger until the blogs raised a ruckus. Schumer's backing a candidate who said she would vote for telco immunity on FISA -- that it's A-OK for your phone company to spy on you without a warrant. Hagan has refused (so far) to answer any inquiries regarding her positions on LGBT legislation (employment non-discrimination, hate crimes and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, for example).

Jim Neal, who is clear on FISA and LGBT issues, has received the endorsement of Blue America, recently got the thumbs up by the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. A recent SurveyUSA shows 21% of likely NC voters favor Jim Neal, compared with 18% for State Senator Kay Hagan.

Jim just released his statement on the fifth anniversary of "Shock and Awe" in Baghdad.

America has been in Iraq for five years - longer than we spent in either World War.  American troops were sent into Iraq with inadequate planning and inadequate force levels.    

This war has already cost nearly 4,000 American lives, more than 29,000 American wounded, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.   It will cost American taxpayers more than $3 trillion.  It has cost our nation the trust and respect of nations around the world.  We will bear the scars for generations.  

Senator Elizabeth Dole has blindly backed the policies of the Bush-Cheney Administration which took us away from the hunt for Osama Bin-Laden and entangled us in Iraq's religious civil war.

Five years after committing the greatest military error in the history of America, the Bush Administration still does not have a strategy for ending our involvement in Iraq's religious civil war, for rebuilding our overstretched military and caring for our troops who have been wounded in action.  

It's past time to begin planning for the sensible redeployment of our forces away from Iraq and back towards Osama Bin Laden and his followers.    

We have a duty to our troops and their families to ensure they receive the medical care, education and career opportunities they have earned by putting their lives and their comfort at risk for us. We need to spend our tax dollars here at home on what matters most - providing job security for middle-class families, ensuring the health of our families, and leading the fight to protect the air, water and soil which sustains us.
I am committed to ending this war.  Now is the time for North Carolina to have a Senator who will stand by our troops and stand up to the Bush Administration.  

Click here to help Jim win eQualityGiving's poll.