wendy long would prefer to be spending more time with her children. instead, she is trying to unseat charles schumer, new york<u+2019>s senior u.s. senator. mrs. long, a republican, is in the race because mr. schumer is, as she described him, <u+201c>the very face of the failed, corrupt establishment that has gotten our country into the mess it<u+2019>s in now.<u+201d> the 56-year-old mrs. long is no a stranger to politics. a former spokeswoman for two former u.s. senators, gordon humphrey of new hampshire and william armstrong of colorado, she challenged kirsten gillibrand in 2012. new york<u+2019>s junior senator won re-election. <u+201c>the people i talk to all around this state, the people i see everyday, in my own neighborhood right here in east harlem, they<u+2019>re suffering,<u+201d> mrs. long, an attorney by profession, said in an interview in her fifth avenue apartment overlooking central park. mr. schumer, a democrat seeking a fourth six-year term, declined to comment on mrs. long. many of the senator<u+2019>s allies and political observers, however, said the nov. 8 election might as well be over. <u+201c>wendy long is totally unknown,<u+201d> said doug muzzio a professor of public affairs at baruch college in manhattan. <u+201c>she doesn<u+2019>t have a chance. if anything is close to a sure thing, this is it.<u+201d> mrs. long said republican presidential nominee donald trump inspired her to enter this year<u+2019>s race. like mr. trump, mrs. long said she wants a wall built between the u.s. and mexico , favors strict immigration laws, worries that dishonest politicians are destroying the economy and believes the nation is too politically correct. a graduate of dartmouth college and northwestern university school of law, mrs. long lives with her husband, arthur long, their two teenagers and the family<u+2019>s three dogs. each dog has a cushion on a sofa in front of the front door. mrs. long loves animals. her home is decorated with artworks depicting rabbits and horses. she has assisted the city<u+2019>s parks enforcement patrol as a mounted auxiliary officer in central park. mrs. long met her husband while they were both working as clerks for u.s. supreme court justice clarence thomas in the 1990s. <u+201c>our children are the first 100% purebred justice thomas kids,<u+201d> she said as she sat in her living room, with a framed picture of the late supreme court justice antonin scalia and justice thomas displayed on a small table. after working with an organization that advocated for judicial nominees of former president george w. bush, mrs. long took a hiatus from her career to home-school her children. her son, arthur, was expelled from the private st. bernard<u+2019>s school, near the family<u+2019>s home, for chanting a rap lyric that included a racial slur; the chant had been directed to an african-american student, mrs. long said. mrs. long said other students chanted the racial slur but weren<u+2019>t expelled because they denied their involvement to school officials. school administrators, she said, thought her son led the chant; she enlisted a lawyer and had her son take a polygraph test to prove he wasn<u+2019>t the leader. she said her son was honest but wasn<u+2019>t treated fairly. st. bernard<u+2019>s doesn<u+2019>t comment on <u+201c>statements made by candidates in furtherance of their political campaigns,<u+201d> said a spokesman for the school. mrs. long said her son<u+2019>s expulsion was as an example of a broader problem nationwide. <u+201c>our country is being subsumed by political correctness, and that i think is driven by the phenomenon of bigness,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s big government, it<u+2019>s big corporations, it<u+2019>s big drug companies, it<u+2019>s big media. everything is getting so big that it<u+2019>s too big to fail.<u+201d> mrs. long said the thought of mr. schumer running unopposed upset her because it would have resembled <u+201c>some election in the soviet union.<u+201d> she said she has <u+201c>a small chance<u+201d> of unseating mr. schumer. still, mrs. long said she has other things on her mind. she might mount a horse again soon for the auxiliary unit in central park. write to zolan kanno-youngs at zolan.kanno-youngs@wsj.com
schumer rival knows she is the long shot - wsj
zolan kanno-youngs