when democratic sen. chuck schumer surveyed the political landscape a few months before the election, it must have looked like a dream about to come true: hillary clinton would win the presidency in a breeze. democrats would retake the senate. mr. schumer, 66 years old, would be majority leader. the dream died on nov. 8. donald trump won the white house and republicans held the senate, leaving mr. schumer with the lesser post of minority leader. now instead of leading democrats to new progressive heights, his task is to protect president obama<u+2019>s legacy from being wiped out. republicans<u+2019> first order of business is abolishing the affordable care act. but mr. schumer thinks the health law is safe from president trump. <u+201c>obamacare, he won<u+2019>t be able to do it,<u+201d> the senator said on fox news last week. the gop simply doesn<u+2019>t have the votes to kill the program, he added. mr. schumer wants to revive the health-care law with fixes and more funding. but persuading fellow democrats to defend the legislation won<u+2019>t be easy. obamacare has been a curse on mr. schumer<u+2019>s party since it was enacted. republicans exploited its unpopularity to capture the house in 2010 and the senate in 2014. more than half of the democratic senators who voted to pass obamacare are gone. there<u+2019>s also the midterms in two years. if obamacare is reprieved, the curse will return in 2018, when 25 democratic senate seats are at stake. ten of those are in states mr. trump won<u+2014>including five states he won by 19 percentage points or more. are vulnerable democrats eager to tie themselves to obamacare one more time? mr. schumer seems to think so, but perhaps he isn<u+2019>t the best judge of the politics. in 2010 he predicted that senators who voted for obamacare <u+201c>will find it an asset, those who voted against it will find it a liability.<u+201d> his predictions haven<u+2019>t improved. this year he talked former democratic sen. evan bayh, who retired in 2011 after voting for obamacare, into running for his old indiana seat. that was supposed to make a democratic takeover of the upper chamber all but certain. mr. bayh lost to republican rep. todd young by nearly 10 points. not to overdo the argument, but mr. schumer<u+2019>s predictions on the supreme court were wrong, too. he said in march that republicans would cave and vote on mr. obama<u+2019>s nominee for the high court, merrick garland. no vote has been taken. mr. schumer will soon face a new nominee from president trump. yet these ups and downs didn<u+2019>t affect mr. schumer<u+2019>s selection two weeks ago as minority leader. he was unopposed as he leapfrogged mr. reid<u+2019>s deputy, illinois<u+2019>s dick durbin. and he does bring advantages with him to the leader<u+2019>s job. for one, he<u+2019>s different from the ornery mr. reid. <u+201c>reid liked nothing better than to poke you in both eyes, but that<u+2019>s not schumer<u+2019>s style,<u+201d> says thomas defrank, a former washington bureau chief for the new york daily news. <u+201c>except for his towering ambition, schumer is a democratic jim baker, fiercely partisan when necessary but usually the ultimate pragmatist.<u+201d> mr. schumer is well-liked, gets along with republicans, and reportedly enjoys spending time with colleagues in the senate gym. that would seem to bode well for his ability to negotiate with republicans to get business done. but his flexibility is limited by the senate<u+2019>s powerful left wing, led by sens. elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. when mr. schumer and house speaker paul ryan discussed a deal on tax reform last year, the democrat proposed terms his leftist colleagues might accept. that killed any chance of an agreement. as minority leader, mr. schumer has put together an unwieldy 10-man leadership team ranging from the moderate sen. joe manchin to the socialist mr. sanders. for chairman of the democratic national committee, he has endorsed rep. keith ellison, who is black, a muslim and perhaps the most left-wing member of the house. at the same time, mr. schumer has known mr. trump for decades. after the election the two new yorkers talked by phone several times. only a week ago, mr. trump tweeted: <u+201c>i have always had a good relationship with chuck schumer. he is far smarter than harry reid and has the ability to get things done.<u+201d> but mr. schumer is trying to keep his distance from mr. trump. <u+201c>he was not my friend,<u+201d> the senator told politico. <u+201c>we never went golfing together, even had a meal together.<u+201d> mr. schumer insists that he will negotiate on issues democrats support<u+2014>such as mr. trump<u+2019>s desire to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure<u+2014>but not on building a border wall or weakening the dodd-frank financial regulation. yet republicans are wary of what a trump-schumer cabal might produce. <u+201c>democrats will unite in opposition to things we support and side with trump on things we don<u+2019>t,<u+201d> one gop official says. the president, he adds, <u+201c>may end up attacking us as much as them. which would suit democrats just fine.<u+201d> especially mr. schumer. mr. barnes, executive editor of the weekly standard, is a fox news commentator.
chuck schumer<u+2019>s minority duty - wsj
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