Could the son of a hardworking blue collar Brooklyn war veteran become the first Jewish president?
For Chuck Schumer (D), New York’s senior Senator, it is one of those aspirations that may be dreamed of but never uttered, for it would reveal a political ambition that would cast a long and deep shadow on his every vote, political alliance and Congressional leadership position.
{mosads}Such a possible run, of course, will depend on Hillary Clinton’s now announced Democratic presidential candidacy and whether she secures the White House. After spending what some suggest will be as much as $2 billion in the coming campaign, a defeat would leave the Democrats dispirited, in disarray and recalibrating their political center. Their party would be forced to go back to the basics of building a national platform where pragmatism, deal making and compromise would be the tools of choice if they had any hope of ousting the incumbent Republican in 2020. Few excel at that kind of politics better than Chuck Schumer.
Schumer would be 68 if he decided to run for president two election cycles from now. It is assumed he would, at the very least, have the title of “Senate Minority Leader” on his office door, giving him an enormous platform from which to dominate the Sunday talk shows for the next four years. With a sixth sense for how to master the news cycle, he could translate that skill into a presence in key primary states without ever having to tip his hand. His ability to direct and dispense federal appropriations would also provide him with added political muscle in those states where Jewish politicians are virtually unknown.
This scenario however comes with a very big “but.” It’s called President Obama’s Iranian Nuclear diplomacy, a feckless pact with a deceitful Iran; and how Senator Schumer reacts to this unfolding crisis will be as crucial and pivotal to his political career as it is to the survival of Israel and the security of the United States. While Schumer has been known to bob and weave on prior domestic and international issues, this one leaves little room for equivocating, and his role will be judged by history as well as Presidential voters in 2020.
Schumer has already dodged one political bullet given that the President says he will sign a bill that will give Congress an opportunity to reject the White House-brokered nuclear accord with Iran. Interestingly, Schumer isn’t saying he would oppose the Obama agreement when it comes up for a vote but he has privately told supporters that the worst thing that could come out of the Iran talks is a “bad deal.” No one has yet heard the Senator say that the current Obama proposal is exactly that.
This parsing of language and his tight-rope balancing of political nuance probably keeps Chuck Schumer up at night because he knows that if Obama imposes a “bad deal,” and Schumer blinks, the world could slide into an unimaginable nuclear exchange with the end result that the Middle East becomes a radioactive ash and with it, the solemn vow by the Jewish people to “never again” permit another Holocaust.
As Schumer zeros in on his probable elevation to Senate minority, and a possible run for the Presidency if Hillary’s campaign ends in failure, he dare not lose sight of the fact that he has a moral responsibility and political authority to prevent a radioactive holocaust. He must set aside Capitol Hill expediency in the interest of genuine leadership at a time when a sitting president appears ready to sacrifice the State of Israel to obtain Iranian signatures on a treaty. In truth, Schumer may be the last best hope in preventing Israel’s nuclear extinction by a regime that has never wavered in its call for the total and complete destruction of a nation they call “the Zionist entity.”
Kadish is a member of the Board of Governors of the Gatestone Institute and a former Republican National committeeman for the State of New York.