From Fred Dicker’s column in the Post, “Top Republican candidates to challenge Chuck Schumer“:
“Three sitting congressmen and the newly chosen Manhattan GOP chairwoman are on a short list of potential Republican challengers to Sen. Charles Schumer next year, The Post has learned. Two of the congressmen, both from upstate, are pro-choice and pro-gay-marriage, making them exceptions in a socially conservative New York party but also making them “promising’’ as statewide contenders, said a knowledgeable Republican activist …”
Not our issues.
“… The third congressman, Rep. Peter King of Nassau County, is conservative on social issues but is also a high-profile critic of some of the GOP’s most prominent national conservative activists … While King, 71, has toyed with the possibility of mounting a presidential campaign himself, he’s demonstrated little popularity with the national GOP base and is widely seen as unlikely to do so. “I really think King might be interested in going after Schumer,’’ the GOP activist contended …”
Pete King is a major league antigun RINO asshole.
“… Adele Malpass, wife of former New York Senate hopeful and Reagan and George H.W. Bush official David Malpass, took over the long-struggling Manhattan, or New York County, GOP Committee in December, and is touted as having a promising future. She’s also a social liberal with considerable financial resources, but she told The Post that she’s not interested in running next year …”
Dear God, No. She’d make Pete King look like an attractive alternative.
“… The two socially liberal congressmen are Chris Gibson, of Kinderhook, who recently announced that he’ll leave Congress after next year, and Richard Hanna of Utica …”
Gibson is my Congressman. I don’t have a problem with him. Hanna I’ve only spoken to on the phone. I don’t know his full record, but on guns he has been supportive.
Bottom line is either Gibson or Hanna would be an improvement over the incumbent.
“… While GOP insiders concede that defeating the long-tenured Schumer, who is now in line to succeed the retiring Harry Reid and become the next Senate Democratic leader, would be difficult, they point to polls showing President Obama with a negative rating among New York Jewish voters and the strong upstate showing last fall of Republican gubernatorial hopeful Rob Astorino as offering hope to a Schumer challenger …”
Say what you want about him, but Chuck Schumer is one of the best politicians out there. I don’t agree with him on much, but in the art of politicking, manipulating the public and media, bullshitting and ass-kissing, nobody is better than Chuck. That is why he has been so successful and why he’d be tough to beat.