Schumer Asserts Iran War Would Destroy G.O.P.

Bombing Iran, says Chuck Schumer, would be a big political loser for Republican candidates in 2008.
“It would change the landscape against them, big time,” Mr. Schumer, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said about a scenario in which the Bush administration launches a military attack on Iran before leaving office. “I don’t think they are likely to do it, because they are so weak—not because they are chastened—but I also think it is very likely to be a negative political for them.”
Despite all the Bush administration’s saber rattling, the 56-year-old Brooklyn native believes the president’s political footing is too weak to build the case for another war, especially when the public is “far more skeptical of that the second time around.”
In an interview in his Third Avenue offices on Oct. 29, the top Democratic political tactician in Congress expressed unwavering optimism in his party’s chances to increase its majority in the Senate, even in the case of a traumatic event like war with Iran. He evinced similar confidence about the prospect of having the ostensibly polarizing Hillary Clinton at the top of the Democratic ticket, and about his Senate candidates having to campaign against the supposedly moderate Rudy Giuliani.
“The wind is at our backs as Democrats,” he said.
Mr. Schumer said that his internal polling showed that the country now preferred Democratic to Republican candidates by a “double-digit” margin, and that the low approval rating received by the Democratic-controlled Congress was really a reflection of the country’s frustration with the inability of senators to stop George Bush. (He said that the single most potent line he had against Republican incumbents was “that they have voted 96 percent of the time with George Bush.”)

Read the story at TheNewYorkObserver.