Democrats are hungry for a hardball strategy against a resurgent Republican Party, and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin is positioning himself as a leading aggressor — a move that could help him in a potential run for majority leader.
Durbin (D-Ill.) led the scorched-earth strategy against Sen. Jim Bunning’s one-man blockade of jobless benefits, and he’s now open to making Republicans actually hold the Senate chamber for real filibusters.
Durbin’s newly pugnacious strategy comes as more congressional insiders are whispering about the possibility of a Durbin vs. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) race for Senate majority leader if Nevada Sen. Harry Reid loses reelection.
Durbin won’t talk about his strategy in the context of a potential majority leader race, describing himself instead as a “catalyst” in the charge against Bunning. Durbin’s audience is mostly inside the Senate chamber — a new generation of Democratic senators flustered by the plodding pace of the upper chamber.
“I think you’ll see more of it,” Durbin told POLITICO, referring to confrontational tactics against a recalictrant GOP minority.
If Durbin finds himself in a race to become the next majority leader after this fall’s elections, his position as aggressor-in-chief could appeal to the 17 Democrats elected in the past two election cycles, who are calling for a bare-knuckle strategy against the GOP. Many of those new senators are generally seen as closer to Durbin’s potential rival for the leadership spot, Schumer, who helped them win their seats when he ran the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2006 and 2008. - Politico Story
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