Sen. Chuck Schumer invited Harry Reid to spend Monday morning with him in Brooklyn, where some of Schumer’s well-heeled friends opened their checkbooks to help the Senate majority leader’s struggling reelection bid.
Democratic Whip Dick Durbin has invited Reid to join him next week in Chicago, where he’ll connect the Nevada Democrat with Windy City business leaders who’ll pour even more money into Reid’s campaign.
For Schumer and Durbin, it’s all part of a delicate dance. While Capitol Hill insiders say the two men appear to be jockeying to show their fellow Democrats that they’d be the logical successors to Reid, they’re also showing Reid unyielding loyalty where it counts: campaign cash.
So, there Schumer was Monday morning, introducing Reid to the big-money developers of the New Jersey Nets’ new $4.9 billion facility in Brooklyn. Schumer told the developers that he and Reid had been “through war together,” and he called the Nevadan his “foxhole buddy,” according to someone who was there.
“He is beloved by our caucus, from the most conservative to the most liberal,” Schumer told the fundraisers on Monday, the source said. “He does a great job of bringing together 59 Democrats of such broad philosophical and geographic diversity. And the egos are not small. What Harry does is amazing.”
Monday’s fundraiser was headlined by Bruce Ratner, the real estate mogul who owns the Nets — and who has donated more than $127,000 to Democrats in recent years.
While Schumer’s office won’t say how much money the event raised for Reid, cash poured in from a number of developers and real estate types. The event came just hours before a procedural vote on a plan to rewrite the rules for Wall Street, but Reid’s office stressed that the donors who turned out Monday weren’t bankers or Wall Street officials — and that, in fact, many work for Ratner’s company as well as for electrical and construction companies.
Showing posts with label Chuck Schumer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chuck Schumer. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Dems usually win money chase on Wall Street
Back in 2006, Democrats began a hard sell on Wall Street led by New York senator Chuck Schumer and then-representative Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff. The basic pitch was that Democrats were taking Congress, and the financial world should get on board - surely delivered with all the bare-knuckled subtlety for which those two are justly renowned.
Democrats beat Republicans in the Wall Street money chase in 2006, and kept on going. In the 2008 election cycle, Democrats garnered 73 percent of the political donations of Goldman Sachs, as well as the majority of donations from other financial giants such as UBS and Citigroup. They soaked up most of the hedge-fund money, and won the battle for donations from industries as varied as health care, defense, and law.
After Voltaire attended his first orgy and was invited back again, he declined on grounds that once was an experiment, but twice would be perverse. Its experiment has gone horribly wrong, yet Wall Street has persisted in its perversity.
At the end of last year, the Center for Responsive Politics wrote of hedge funds and private equity firms, "This election cycle is proving to be the most left-leaning for the industry." And it wasn't just finance. "Democrats have an enormous lead in almost every business sector they denounce," NR's Kevin D. Williamson noted in January.
Democrats beat Republicans in the Wall Street money chase in 2006, and kept on going. In the 2008 election cycle, Democrats garnered 73 percent of the political donations of Goldman Sachs, as well as the majority of donations from other financial giants such as UBS and Citigroup. They soaked up most of the hedge-fund money, and won the battle for donations from industries as varied as health care, defense, and law.
After Voltaire attended his first orgy and was invited back again, he declined on grounds that once was an experiment, but twice would be perverse. Its experiment has gone horribly wrong, yet Wall Street has persisted in its perversity.
At the end of last year, the Center for Responsive Politics wrote of hedge funds and private equity firms, "This election cycle is proving to be the most left-leaning for the industry." And it wasn't just finance. "Democrats have an enormous lead in almost every business sector they denounce," NR's Kevin D. Williamson noted in January.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
In the guise of reform, Schumer obligates donors
Schumer has been a champion of Wall Street financial firms for years, particularly hedge funds, yet now is holding himeslf out as a reformer.
It was Schumer who helped organize hedge fund lobbying efforts and campaign contributions, as reported by the NY Times on March 13, 2007:
On a cold evening in late January, Senator Charles E. Schumer invited a who's who of hedge funds to dinner at Bottega del Vino on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. More than $100 billion worth of wealth sat around the table, including Paul Tudor Jones of Tudor Capital; Steven Cohen of SAC Capital; Stanley Druckenmiller of Duquesne Capital; and James Chanos of Kynikos Capital, according to a person who was briefed on the dinner.
Mr. Schumer, the New York Democrat, had some simple advice for the billionaires in his midst: If you want Washington to work with you, you had better work better with one another.
(snip)
Now, Schumer is holding himself out as a leader in the effort to reform Wall Street as part of the effort by Democrats to raise a populist argument in the run-up to the November elections.
Expect Schumer publicly to treat his former Wall Street friends the way he treated a flight attendant, now that the spotlight is on the money shoved deep into his and other Democrats' pockets for years.
Privately, Schumer will see to it that the "reforms" are for show only, so that he can go back to the Wall Street fundraising well again and again and again.
From Bloomberg: Of the $7.4 million contributed by employees of the 100 largest hedge funds and 50 biggest buyout firms in 2005-06, Democrats received $5 million, Federal Election Commission records show. The biggest checks went to congressional campaign committees led by New York Senator Charles Schumer and Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, which took in $2.8 million.
It was Schumer who helped organize hedge fund lobbying efforts and campaign contributions, as reported by the NY Times on March 13, 2007:
On a cold evening in late January, Senator Charles E. Schumer invited a who's who of hedge funds to dinner at Bottega del Vino on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. More than $100 billion worth of wealth sat around the table, including Paul Tudor Jones of Tudor Capital; Steven Cohen of SAC Capital; Stanley Druckenmiller of Duquesne Capital; and James Chanos of Kynikos Capital, according to a person who was briefed on the dinner.
Mr. Schumer, the New York Democrat, had some simple advice for the billionaires in his midst: If you want Washington to work with you, you had better work better with one another.
(snip)
Now, Schumer is holding himself out as a leader in the effort to reform Wall Street as part of the effort by Democrats to raise a populist argument in the run-up to the November elections.
Expect Schumer publicly to treat his former Wall Street friends the way he treated a flight attendant, now that the spotlight is on the money shoved deep into his and other Democrats' pockets for years.
Privately, Schumer will see to it that the "reforms" are for show only, so that he can go back to the Wall Street fundraising well again and again and again.
From Bloomberg: Of the $7.4 million contributed by employees of the 100 largest hedge funds and 50 biggest buyout firms in 2005-06, Democrats received $5 million, Federal Election Commission records show. The biggest checks went to congressional campaign committees led by New York Senator Charles Schumer and Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, which took in $2.8 million.
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