Democrats’ “Message Guru” Encouraging His Party’s Candidates To Embrace Occupy Wall Street Movement

After spending years shaking down Wall Street banks and bankers for millions of dollars in campaign contributions, particularly during his four years leading the DSCC, New York’s senior Senator Chuck Schumer said today that not only is he now encouraging Senate Democrats to campaign against the New York financial industry, but that “income inequality” is a “winning issue” for his party moving into next year’s election.

In an interview today with liberal Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent, the Democrats’ anointed “message guru” said that “Occupy Wall Street has resonance far beyond the protests,” and vowed that inequality would be a central issue in the campaign that Democrats would focus on “like a laser.”

“It’s a remarkable admission from New York’s senior Senator that he believes vilifying the New York City financial community, which is responsible for creating tens of thousands of New York jobs, constitutes a winning campaign issue for his party,” NRSC Communications Director Brian Walsh said today.  “We can only hope that all New Yorkers, and particularly those who have donated millions of dollars to Schumer’s campaigns over the years, take note of their Senator’s true colors.  Chuck Schumer is a professional politician who will literally say or do anything to preserve power in Washington, even if it means throwing his own constituents right under the bus.”

Notably, Schumer’s anti-Wall Street rhetoric hasn’t stopped him from benefitting greatly from their financial largesse over the years, raising the question of if Schumer intends to keep the almost $10 million in campaign cash that he has personally accepted from the New York financial community – to say nothing of the millions more Schumer raised as Chairman of the DSCC.   As Politico reported two years ago:

• Wall Street has showered nearly $11 million on the Senate since the beginning of the year, and more than 15 percent of it has gone to a single senator: Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York.  Schumer’s $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator’s — and more than five times what the industry gave to any single Republican senator.

Schumer’s comments also come just days after the New York Post pointed out in an editorial appropriately titled – Kirsten the Chameleon – that despite her own recent support for the Occupy movement, no U.S. Senator facing re-election next year has taken more money from Wall Street than New York’s junior Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

“If Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand believe the pathway to preserving a Senate Democrat majority starts with vilifying the New York financial community then they should do the honorable thing and return the millions of dollars they’ve accepted from them over the years.  If they choose not to, then voters should chalk it up to yet another chapter in a long history of shameless hypocrisy from their two U.S. Senators,” Walsh concluded.