2016 Postmortem

Chuck Schumer Is All In On Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Party

By Michael McAuliff - 11/19/2016 12:10 pm ET | Updated Nov 20, 2016

The Vermont senator lost to Hillary Clinton, but the new Senate minority leader thinks his message is a winner.

~Snip~

When you lose an election the way we did, you don’t flinch, you don’t look away. You look it in the eye and say ‘What did we do wrong?’” said Schumer, who also had a significant role in Democrats’ 2016 calculations. “To me, overwhelmingly, we did not have a strong economic message. What we need is a sharper, bolder, stronger, more progressive economic message.”

Schumer explained that includes staples from the Sanders and Warren wing of the party ― debt-free college, at least some of the free college that was so mocked by the Clinton campaign, a higher minimum wage, a “bolder” stance on trade, a tougher stance on the “rigged” system of lobbyists and special interests, and major investments in infrastructure, among other ideas.

“Bernie convinced me of this. Bernie asked me to do it, to organize it,” Schumer said, adding that he agrees with Sanders’ idea that the DNC needs to become more of an activist and organizing operation.

“So when we’re pushing for a strong college bill on the floor, there are hundreds of thousands of people on campuses across the country emailing, and tweeting and calling and protesting. And when we do minimum wage, there should be minimum wage workers all over the country pushing for that,” Schumer said. “That’s what Bernie wants to do with the DNC, and I completely agree.”...

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chuck-schumer-is-all-in-on-bernie-sanders-democratic-party_us_58307a38e4b030997bbfc3cc