(JNi.media) According to Politico, which is the source of these rumors, Chuck Schumer’s office has received more than 10,000 phone calls over the past two weeks, all of them from groups and individuals opposed to the Iran nuclear deal.
And if that’s not enough, there’s a multi-million dollar, AIPAC ad campaign against the deal being run on NYC TV stations, intended to pressure Schumer and the rest of the NY congressional delegation to vote against the plan—and against the president.
Schumer has told Politico he’s still making up his mind,insisting he would decide on the merits of the deal, not based lobbying.
“I haven’t made up my mind,” Schumer said. “There are expectations all over the lot. I’m doing what I’m always doing when I have a very difficult decision: learning it carefully and giving it my best shot, doing what I think is right. I’m not going to let pressure or politics or party get in the way of that.”
But, according to Politico, people close to Schumer believe the pressure campaign is working. They say there is “a growing sense inside and outside the Capitol that Schumer will vote against the deal when the Senate considers it in September.”
On Saturday, the NY Post’s Michael Goodwin wrote that, since the career of Democrat Schumer is best served by standing with Democrat Obama, that is what he will do.
“Everything else is detail,” wrote Goodwin, noting that Schumer is the party’s next leader in the Senate (first Jew in that post), and “breaking with a Democratic president on a signature, legacy issue would be so huge as to jeopardize the position he has craved and earned. Obama would see the act as unforgivable treason and demand a replacement.”
True enough. But if Schumer’s vote is perceived by the vast majority of his core voters as betrayal against the motherland, kugel, and matza balls — he might not make it back into the Senate come next elections.
In 2016, the Senior Senator from the Empire State is running again.
Tough call, indeed.
Schumer is one of about 15 or so Democratic senators who could decide the fate of the Iran deal, once Republican Congress kills it, then President Obama vetoes the kill bill, then Congress tries to override the veto.
Should Schumer decide that overriding the presidential veto is a do or die vote for his own political career, the deal is effectively dead. Democratic senators fear their minority leader a whole lot more than they do their president.
Democratic Senator Chris Coons from Delaware told Politico President Obama and national security adviser Susan Rice had lobbied him hard to support the deal, but Coons says the phone calls he has received against the deal outnumber those in favor by 10-to-1 in his state.
“I am a Democrat, and I would like to be able to support this agreement,” Coons said. “But I have serious reservations about it.”