Posted on 10/31/2013 7:04:29 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
CEDAR RAPIDS — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told Iowa Republicans last Friday night that the tea party’s partial shutdown of the federal government has energized conservatives.
Saturday night, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer will tell Iowa Democrats the shutdown is energizing “mainstream conservatives” right out of the tea party.
“Ted Cruz and the tea party have peaked,” according to Schumer, who will be the featured speaker at the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson Jackson Day Dinner at 7 p.m. Saturday in Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines.
About 700 people are expected for the Jefferson Jackson Dinner, which is considered one of the top political events in the country. Past speakers have included Vice President Joe Biden, President Bill Clinton, then-Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Vice President Al Gore.
Schumer, 62, the third-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate, also will talk about what he sees as the nation’s No. 1 economic problem. It’s not the deficit, although reducing it remains important. Rather it’s the fact that for the first time in American history, middle-class incomes have declined, said Schumer, who has a reputation as a strong voice for progressive politics.
“They’ve been declining since 2001, so it’s not just the recession,” he said.
Declining middle-class income is the greatest problem because it diminishes the American dream, Schumer said.
“If you ask the average American what the American dream is, they will tell you it means that if they work hard, they will be better off in 10 years than they are today and their children will be better off than they are,” he said.
While Cruz may think the shutdown fight has energized conservatives, Schumer thinks it scared most Americans.
During the 16-day shutdown, the public “actually saw what it was like and they found it distasteful,” he said.
He characterized the tea party as “ideologues who think they are so right they don’t have to compromise” and engage in “bludgeon politics,” threatening that “unless you do it my way I will hurt a lot of innocent people.”
That is causing many mainstream conservatives to have second thoughts about the tea party, Schumer said.
“It made a lot of mainstream conservatives realize that if they follow the tea party, they will be following the Republican car over the cliff like Thelma and Louise,” he said.
Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2005 to 2009 and the current chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, also made it clear he’s not traveling to Iowa to plant the seeds for a 2016 presidential run.
“The last time I ran for president was at Cunningham Junior High School in 1964,” he said. “I lost, and I vowed I would never run for president again, and that still holds."
Don’t tell me, Chucky is going to send in his two attack poodles. McCain and Graham.
HA! Good luck.
42% Identify with Obama Politically, 42% with the Tea Party
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3085035/posts
If Schmuckster really believed that he wouldn’t be worried about what is going on in Iowa.
Declining middle-class income is the greatest problem because it diminishes the American dream, Schumer said.
Thank the folks in DC for that.
Oh, and hurry up and legalize another 30 million illegals while your at it.
I’m missing something here... Didn’t the Democrats declare the TEA Party was dead and finished earlier this summer???
keep tellin yourself that Chuckster!
Schumer... such a man of the people with his finger on the pulse!
I’d be shocked if he could bait a fish hook.
We know how the draft turned out for the DNC in 68 and how this health care draft is going to fly. Schumer is not attacking the tparty but trying to fool democrat voters.
Has anyone assembled an index of Tea Party death announcements? I have to imagine it would rival its global warming counterpart.
Your perception of reality has been declining since you were born.
Ha! I have some welfare cats just like that!
What New York Sen. Chuck Schumer calls “mainstream conservatives” are RINO weasels that have pushed the GOP to have a succession of losing presidential candidates, Bob Dole, John McPain & Mitt Romney, plus a lot of Republican senators who have let the Democrats pass laws allowing socialism & put leftists into lifetime judicial positions.
Real conservatives have been trying to retake the Republican Party, but if we cannot see some progress in that, we will bolt and form a new party.
I’m sure the Iowans are very honored to have an actual graduate of Cunningham Junior High School come out to their backward state and explain things to them in simple terms even they can follow...
Wow - the ‘rats are worried about Cruz.....
... and because it indicates the current president is a failure, he added.
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