Well, obviously, because he is not worried about the middle, he is worried about his base. This betrays much about the current state of affairs among American leftists.
Why is he concerned for the base? I think it is because the base of the Democrat party is either out of control or, conversely, utterly under the control of one man, George Soros. Either the mob at moveon.org and Daily Kos have so utterly intimidated elected Democrats that those Democrats are more concerned with mollifying their extremists, or something else is afoot. These two possibilities are only superficially inconsistent because George Soros indirectly controls these bloggers.
Have a look at FrontPagemagazine.com and look at our articles describing how George Soros has seized control of so much of the Democrat party. I think it is entirely possible that Schumer routinely gets his marching orders from George Soros. It is now becoming more and more apparent how extremely left-wing Soros really is. He clearly regards Republicans in general and the Bush administration in particular to be the equivalent of Nazis. He has stated that he would gladly gave his fortune to have seen George Bush defeated. What would he give to see George Bush's legacy of judicial appointments undone?
I think Soros can direct people like Schumer either by stirring up the bloggers or by dropping the word to those who must go to him with begging bowl in hand.
I also think that George Soros is becoming a real and present danger to American democracy.
The Dems know that a HUGE portion of their base is either fanatical or ignorant and that they can get away with almost anything . The sheeple follow the Dems without question. They are so blind in their vengeance against Bush that they accept everything and anything the party does.The Dems leaders know this and take full advantage of their ignorant base. You surely don’t think the Dem leadership actually believes half of what they say do you ? I’m sure that behind closed doors the Dem leadership must laugh their asses off over how stupid their loyal followers actually are.
YES!
Schumer and George Soros have convinced themselves that they know what is best, and that they are the “mainstream.” They are probably wrong, but don’t underestimate your enemies.
Keep in mind that Schumer's audience is the American Constitution Society, which was recently created as an answer/offset to the Federalist Society, which now has 4 members on SCOTUS.
The dems have identified the Federalist Society as the cornerstone of the VRWC. The dems have also recognized that while there are actual card carrying members of the Fed Soc, there are also stealth federalists such as Judge Janice Brown and AG Alberto Gonzales. Whenever you see the dems try to prevent confirmation of a Bush nominee, or attack one of Bush's employees, the underlying justification for their action(tho they won't admit it) is the individual's membership, or stealth membership, in the Federalist Society.
Social Conservatives tend to look at these Judges in light of social issues such as abortion, and the dems do also. But the dems have a much wider conspiracy theory involving the VRWC and the Feddies.
The dems think that the GOP is using the Free Trade Agreements(NAFTA, CAFTA, the bilaterals, and eventually FTAA) to establish a Western Hemispheric wide set of regulatory laws that is in direct conflict with the regulatory laws that the dems have established in the US beginning with FDR and the New Deal. Their theory is that once the GOP has the hemispheric reg laws in place, a SCOTUS with 5 Feddies will rule that all the dem's reg laws in the US are un-constitutional. You will often hear the dems say that Bush, the GOP, the VRWC, and/or the Federalist Society are trying to "roll back the New Deal" or "roll back the 20th century".
This is why the dems have told Bush that he will have to re-negotiate the pending FTAs with Peru, Columbia, Panama, and S. Korea to include regulatory protections for the unions, the environment, and social justice. If the dems can take the presidency next year, they will try to re-write NAFTA and CAFTA to include the same protections.
Your answer lies within your question. Hillary can't win in '08 unless they fool their nutroots. They can't afford to have one single Kossack sit on their hands (their usual posture).