Schumer offers faint praise for Owens

The Watertown Daily Times’ Jude Seymour captured a bit of political awkwardness from Senator Chuck Schumer yesterday. Schumer was in Lowville to talk about the emerald ash borer when Seymour asked him how he handicaps the 23rd Congressional run-off between Democrat Bill Owens, Republican Dede Scozzafava, and Conservative Douglas Hoffman. A softball question for the guy who led the Democrats’ resurgence in the Senate in 2006, right?

Wrong. Schumer didn’t even include Owens in his answer:

“I’m not going to handicap it. It’s too early to tell. Too many candidates,” he said. “Obviously, from our side the strongest candidate would have been (Darrel) Aubertine, but he’s not going to run. So I don’t have much to say about it other than that.”

To make matters politically more complex, Schumer moved on to an appearance in Ogdensburg, where his staff had invited the Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, but not Bill Owens.

According to Seymour and the Times, Schumer backtracked with a press release:

I am proud to support the expected Democratic candidate for the 23rd district, Bill Owens, who was supported unanimously by the district’s Democratic county chairs,” Mr. Schumer said. “Bill is an Air Force veteran — a captain, who served at Plattsburgh Air Base — and an attorney who has devoted his career to economic development and bringing jobs to the north country. He is just the kind of community leader we need in Washington. I look forward to supporting his candidacy and to serving with him in the U.S. Congress.

So are Democrats in Washington not too thrilled with Owens, a life-long independent who’s never contributed to the Democratic Party before? This episode leaves Owens blowing in the wind a bit. It’ll be interesting to see how – or if – the Party works to repair the situation.